Postface: Climatic and Ecological Change in the Americas: A Perspective from Historical Ecology

Abstract

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines different climate change experiences across the Americas using historical ecology as a structuring framework for understanding climatic and environmental change across space and through time. It argues that the drier period accompanying the Medieval Climatic Anomaly most likely affected demographic and settlement patterns in Amazonian populations. The book also argues that climatic changes in the Maya region coincide with the emergence of permanent settlements and with an increase in landscape management, leading to substantial changes in forest composition. It then shows how Indigenous peoples in eastern North America prevented ecological changes associated with climatic impacts and preserved prairies and pyrophytic forests through ecological management that mimicked past climate conditions. The book uses the concept of “relational models” to analyze the spatio-temporal pattern of the Pewen landscape use in Argentina and Chile.