[HN Gopher] Did Stone Age Humans Shape the African Landscape wit...
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Did Stone Age Humans Shape the African Landscape with Fire 85,000
Years Ago?
Author : pseudolus
Score : 27 points
Date : 2021-05-08 11:03 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| contingencies wrote:
| Australian aboriginals, who arrived 40,000 years ago, have
| relatively well documented histories of wide scale fire use.
| However, in Australia a substantial portion of the local
| vegetation requires or strongly benefits from exposure to fire in
| order to germinate new seeds. This may not be the case with
| African vegetation.
| drummer wrote:
| Actually, no. All deserts on earth are the result of powerful
| weapons used in the relatively recent past by the 'gods' to wipe
| out (human) civilizations.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Which religion is this?
| grecy wrote:
| I was quite shocked by the landscape driving through many parts
| of West Africa. I always assumed places like Gabon, Republic of
| Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would be 99%
| dense jungle given they're right on the equator.
|
| In some places they are, but also there are immense swaths of
| green rolling hills that stretch to the horizon on all sides. [1]
|
| Speaking to locals they didn't think "modern" humans had
| deforested like that - the evidence would have been visible, and
| everyone agreed it would have been impossible to deforest that
| much landscape without at least steam powered tools.
|
| Maybe fire explains some of it, but I still don't really
| understand.
|
| Amazingly, when I was on the other side of the continent a
| stone's throw from the Eastern side of the DRC, the landscape was
| virtually identical again. [2]
|
| [1] Here are some shots from DRC, for example:
| http://theroadchoseme.com/across-the-drc-day-2
|
| Video of each country too:
|
| Gabon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAglvUMRj3c
|
| Rep. Congo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOn47q06RRM
|
| DRC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8V3GdOcPU
|
| [2] Uganda (almost Eastern DRC) photos:
| http://theroadchoseme.com/ishasha-national-park
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Almost everyone underestimates the capabilities of their
| ancestors and work over time. As an archeologist I've seen
| firsthand the remnants of rivers rerouted with stone tools and
| vast open plains created with grazing animals and/or fire.
| Humans are very good at changing landscapes, regardless of our
| level of technology. It gets quicker and less labor intensive
| with modern tools, but we can do it without them nonetheless.
| pram wrote:
| That's what happened to the Loess Plateau afaik. Doesn't seem
| that unbelievable elsewhere, I agree.
| grecy wrote:
| I certainly don't want to disagree with you, though the sheer
| scale of what I saw is difficult to believe.
|
| I'm talking in the order of a million square kilometres. (DRC
| alone is 2.3 mil...) Do you think that could be done with
| stone tools and fire?
| rhodozelia wrote:
| Check out the forest fires in California and Oregon
| recently, Fire is a fast way to change a lot of land!
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| In the general case, absolutely. Thousands of humans
| working for thousands of years can do impressive things. I
| don't have any particular knowledge of the grasslands of
| tropical africa and a quick look at the literature shows a
| pretty ambiguous situation that I'm not qualified to speak
| to, but the concept as a whole is one that I find
| reasonably plausible.
| detritus wrote:
| Modern technology allows us to seriously meddle with nature
| within a generation or two, whereas always prior it might've
| taken a few tens. Over time though, we've had thousands of
| generations to make our mark.
|
| I fundamentally believe that a lot of our desertified or at
| least somewhat dessicated Earth - around the mediterranean,
| sahara and middle east at least - is significantly due to our
| historical industry.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Beavers can change landscapes. No tools needed.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > have been impossible to deforest that much landscape without
| at least steam powered tools
|
| Or, as many people prefer to call it, goats.
| jessehattabaugh wrote:
| Did ancient humans like to set shit on fire too? news at 11!
| JI00912 wrote:
| I don't know. Did they? Clickbaity titles.....
| _rpd wrote:
| Referenced paper says
|
| > analysis indicate that early anthropogenic fire relaxed
| seasonal constraints on ignitions, influencing vegetation
| composition and erosion
|
| https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/19/eabf9776
| deepsun wrote:
| Nope. Because
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| This isn't an unreasonable proposition at all. Humans are
| well documented to shape the local landscape with fire; "yes"
| would be the _default_ answer to the headline question.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Then why is the headline phrased as a question? If the
| default answer is yes and they _still_ couldn 't be
| assertive then I'm even more suspicious than normal! It's
| certainly sloppy journalism.
| [deleted]
| treeman79 wrote:
| https://phys.org/news/2019-01-sahara-swung-lush-conditions-y...
|
| Every 20,000 years the desert becomes the rainforest.
|
| Seen this theory a few times, there are some cool animations on
| how the Desert essentially moves up and down Africa.
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(page generated 2021-05-08 23:02 UTC)