Scholars now recognize that hunter-gatherer people made significant impacts to local environments. While some studies demonstrate

that native groups could over-harvest shellfish and game resources in some times and places (e.g., Broughton, 1999 and Broughton, 2004), other studies emphasize that local hunter-gatherer groups could be nurturing land managers who constructed productive anthropogenic landscapes through a variety of methods, including tillage, pruning, seed selleck broadcasting, weeding, selective burning, and even irrigation (Anderson, 2005, Bean and Lawton, 1976, Blackburn and Anderson, 1993 and Lewis, 1973). The primary management tool appears to have been the strategic use of prescribed burning to increase the diversity and density of economically exploited resources. Fires enhanced the growth of many plants used by California Indians, including roots, tubers, fruits, greens, nuts, and seeds, as well as significant increases in the see more number of birds and mammals that were traditionally hunted (Lightfoot and Parrish, 2009:98–100). Fires also encouraged the production of young, straight sprouts and other useable raw materials that could have been incorporated into cordage, baskets, and other household materials.

There is some controversy about the scale and magnitude of indigenous management practices in California (see Vale,

2002), but there is growing evidence that local groups employed various management techniques to enhance and maintain coastal prairies, valley oak savannas, montane meadows, and other local ecosystems (Anderson, 2005). On-going eco-archeological investigations in central California indicate that Loperamide indigenous burning regularly took place in the Late Holocene and initial Colonial times (AD 1000–1700s) to create and maintain rich coastal prairie communities composed of grasses (Poaceae), tarweeds (Madia spp.), clover (Trifolium spp.), composites (Asteraceae), and other forbs, along with potentially dense stands of hazel (Corylus cornuta) ( Cuthrell et al., 2012:166–169). There is now some evidence that extensive swaths of coastal prairies may have paralleled the coastline, extending from southern British Columbia into northern California ( Weiser and Lepofsky, 2009:185–186). Field investigations at Ebey’s Prairie on Whidbey Island and the Ozette Prairies of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington indicate that some of these prairies may have been maintained by indigenous burning practices beginning about 2300–2000 years ago ( Weiser and Lepofsky, 2009:202–204). It is possible that the grassland habitats detected on the central coast of California were part of this larger ecological manifestation created by Pacific Coast hunter-gatherers in Late Holocene times.