ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17The Research Program
ofHistorical EcologyWilliam Bal eeDepartment of Anthropology,
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118;email:
[email protected]. Rev. Anthropol. 2006. 35:7598First published
online as a Review inAdvance on April 26, 2006The Annual Review of
Anthropology is onlineat anthro.annualreviews.orgThis articles
doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123231Copyright c2006 by
Annual Reviews.All rights reserved0084-6570/06/1021-0075$20.00Key
Wordshard-core postulates, landscape transformation,
historicalcontingency, human-mediated disturbance, species
diversity,biological invasionsAbstractHistorical ecology is a new
interdisciplinary research program con-cerned with comprehending
temporal and spatial dimensions in therelationships of human
societies to local environments and the cu-mulativeglobal effectsof
theserelationships. Historical ecologycontains core postulates that
concern qualitative types of human-mediated disturbance of natural
environments and the effect of theseon species diversity, among
other parameters. A central term usedin historical ecology to
situate human behavior and agency in theenvironment is the
landscape, as derived from historical geography,instead of the
ecosystem, which is from systems ecology. Historicalecology is
similar to nonequilibrium dynamic theory, but differs inits
postulate of human-mediated disturbance as a principle of
land-scape transformation. Such disturbances counterintuitively may
in-volve anthropogenic primary and secondary succession that
resultin net increases of alpha and even beta diversity. Applied
histori-cal ecology can supply the reference conditions of time
depth andtraditional knowledge to restore past landscapes.75Annu.
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17:17INTRODUCTIONHistorical ecology is a research program
con-cernedwiththeinteractions throughtimebetween societies and
environments and theconsequences of theseinteractions for
un-derstanding the formation of contempo-rary and past cultures and
landscapes (Bal ee1998b; Bal ee & Erickson 2006a,b;
Crumley1994, 1998, 2003; Redman1999; Sutton&Anderson 2004). A
research program is a setofinterdependentpostulatesonwhichonlya
portion of the scientic community agrees(Lakatos1980,
Stengers2000[1993]). It isthereforeunlikea paradigm,
whichintheKuhniansense of normal science assumesconicting models
purporting to explain thatthesamephenomenacannotcoexist(Kuhn1970,
Stengers 2000 [1993]). In anthropology,researchprograms
includecultural ecologyand sociobiology; a generation ago,
researchprograms in the social sciences would have in-cluded
psychoanalysis and Marxism (Lakatos1999 [1973]). In ecology,
systems theory andnonequilibrium dynamics constitute
separateresearch programs (Zimmerer 2000).Research programs consist
of three to vehard-corepostulates(Lakatos1999[1973]).Inhistorical
ecology, thepostulatesarethefollowing: (a) Practically all
environments onEarth have been affected by humans, includ-ing in a
broad sense behavioral activities of thegenus Homo (Kidder &
Bal ee 1998, Redman1999, Sauer 1956), althoughothers
wouldlimitthewide-rangingeffectofhumansonthe environment to only
the entire time dat-ing fromthe beginning of the
Holocene,thatis,thetimecoincidingwiththebegin-nings of agriculture
(Dickinson 2000); (b) hu-man nature is not programmed genetically
orotherwisetolessenoraugment
speciesdi-versityandotherenvironmentalparameters(Crumley2001,
Hayashida2005); (c)itfol-lows that kinds of societies dened by
vari-ous socioeconomic, political, and cultural cri-teria impact
landscapes in dissimilar ways, assome landscapes are less disturbed
(and richerin species) than others; and (d) human inter-actions
with landscapes in a broad variety ofhistorical andecological
contexts may be stud-ied as a total (integrative) phenomenon (Bal
ee1998b, Egan&Howell 2001b, Rival 2006,Sutton & Anderson
2004).Historical ecologiststakealongviewofhistory and landscapes
and thus tend to be atvariance with earlier established research
pro-grams of environmental anthropology (Bal ee&Erickson2006b;
Braudel 1980; Crumley1994, 1998, 2003; Kidder &Bal ee
1998;Russell 1997). Historical ecology exempliesrevisionismof
earlier regnant concepts in cul-tural ecology, cultural
evolutionism, culturalmaterialism, andecological systems
theory(Dove 2001; cf. Headland1997, Rival 2006). Itis an
interdisciplinary means of grappling withapplications from both the
social sciences andlifesciences(Bal ee1998a,b; Crumley1994,1998,
2003), the most important of which forstrategic environmental
concerns is restora-tionecology, asynonymofappliedhistori-cal
ecology (Anderson 2001, Egan & Howell2001a,b, Higgs
2003).Historical ecology arose out of empiricalstudies that showed
problems in the applica-tionofecological
anthropologytocomplexsocieties. Peasantries and other complex
soci-eties exhibiting different socioeconomic stratacould not be
analyzed according to method-ologies developed in cultural ecology
becausecultural ecology referred only to classless orsimple
societies, wherein it was thought a lin-ear relationship existed
between key featuresof
indigenoustechnologyandtheenviron-mentontheonehandandlowpopulationsize
and simple political organization of so-cietyontheother (Boglioli
2000, Cole&Wolf 1974). Such societies were not seen toexert so
much a long-term effect on the lo-cal environment as to be adapted
to its pu-tative constraints (Adams 1998; Bal ee 1989;Bal ee &
Erickson 2006b; Cole & Wolf 1974;Stahl 1996; Wolf 1982, 1999).
Systems the-ory in ecological anthropology was an attemptto bring
more mathematical rigor to the sub-ject matter, especially by
conceiving of humansocieties as populations having exchanges of76
Bal eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from
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17:17energy with other animal and plant
popula-tionsinecosystems(Rappaport2000).
Sys-temstheoryinanthropology,
asinecology,wasahistoricalandexcludedhumanagencyand intentionality
inthe landscape (Dove2001, Wolf 1999; cf. Biersaack 1999).A SECOND
WORLDIn historical ecology the landscape is a placeof interaction
with a temporal dimension thatis as historical andcultural as it is
evolu-tionaryperse, ifnotmoreso,
uponwhichpasteventshavebeeninscribed, sometimessubtly,
ontheland(Crumley2003, Ingold1993, Marquardt &Crumley1987,
Neves&Petersen2006, Russell 1997).
Historicalecologyregisterssimpleforagersandswid-den
horticulturalists as agents of history man-ifesting cultural pasts
that defy placement ina stage of political evolution (Cormier
2003,Crumley 2003, Politis 2001, Rival 2002, Rival2006, Zent
&Zent 2004). Wolf (1982) showedthat cultural ecology lacked a
unied theoryand could not rise above explanations of sin-gle cases
because of its emphasis on humanadaptations to the environment,
rather thandeeming society engaged with that environ-ment and
acting, effectively, to change it overtime. Wolf (1999) argued that
environmentalanthropology needed to abandon systems the-ory and
become both political and historicalecology to assess changes in
relations betweenhuman societies and their landscapes.Historical
ecology has challenged the no-tion of pristine primitives (Wolf
1982) andvirgin rainforests (Bal ee 1989, Denevan 1992)through
different but ultimately convergentstrands of
interdisciplinarythinkinginan-thropology,geography,history,andecology(Hayashida
2005). The notion that landscapeshave history, and that natural
things in givenenvironmentsarehistoriographicindicesofthose
environments, has several precursors indiverseelds,
especiallyinhistoryandge-ography. HistorianCronons (1983)
classicstudyof theimpact of precolonial
IndiansinNewEnglandinshapingthelandscapethought by the Puritans to
be pristine was acareful empirical challenge to the concept
ofpristine primitives harnessed to the restraintsof virginforests
(Turner 2005). Theprin-cipal mechanismthat
createdtheparklandlandscapesnotedbythePuritanswascon-trolled (or
broadcast) re (Cronon 1983, Pyne1998).Indigenous societies molded
not onlymosaic-like environments with patches rich inutilitarian
natural resources, but also in somecases enhanced local (alpha)
species diversity.Specically, controlled(broadcast) res arenow
considered to have enhanced local land-scape heterogeneity as well
as species diversity(especially of rare species), partly by
prevent-ing fuel buildups and the ensuing possibility ofdestructive
wildres in numerous indigenousareas of North America, South
America, andAustralia(Anderson1999; Birdetal.
2005;Boyd1999a,b;Lunt&Spooner2005;Mis-try et al. 2005; Posey
1985; Pyne 1991, 1998;Robbins 1999; Storm 2002; Winthrop 2001;cf.
Fosteretal. 2004). Thatrebyhumanagents in controlled cases amplies
diversity,whereas wildres and combustion by fossil fu-els tend to
have degrading effects, refers onebacktothenotionoflandscape,
wherehu-mans and the environment meet in an analyticwhole, with a
temporal dimension that denesthe relationship (Bal ee 1998a;
Crumley 1994,2003; Ingold1993; Marquardt &Crumley1987; Pyne
1998).Thisnotionoflandscapeinitsmostre-cent
versionoriginatesincultural andhis-torical geography (Denevan 2001,
Doolittle2000, Katesetal. 1990, Olwig2003, Rival2006,
Sutton&Anderson2004). Geogra-phers earlyderivedtheideaof
aninsepa-rabilityof humansandtheenvironment inthe context of a
landscape (Landschaft) partlyfromGermanlandscapegardeners
andar-chitects of the nineteenth century (Crumley1994, Hall 2005,
Wolschke-Bulmahn2004)and from schools of nineteenth-century
land-scape painters in Europe, North America,
andAustraliawhosoughttocapturetheirideasof wilderness andits
embeddedhumanity,www.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology 77Annu.
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17:17however savage, on canvas as well as in theWestern psyche
(Hirsch & OHaulon 1995).The landscape in historical ecology is
also in-uenced by the French Annales school of his-tory
inconceivingof the paysage as undergoingseveral forms of temporal
change, both short-andlong-term, as well as cyclical (Braudel1980,
Crumley 1998).The thinking that humans are everywherehistorical
agents (apart from their conscious-ness of being so) of change
inthe land-scape, by renderingit historical either
byagricultureorsomeotherrecognizablyhu-man interference, dates from
classical antiq-uity (Glacken 1967, Hall 2005, Hughes
1975).Herodotus proposed that historical events un-foldinaphysical
placeandthat thechar-acteristics of place, in turn, change
throughtimei.e.,cultureandtheenvironmentareinasenseintertwinedandchangetogetherthroughtime(Pitzl
2004). Cicerowroteofhow through domestication, fertilization,
andirrigation humans inuenced the creation of asecond world apart
from the so-called naturalone (Glacken 1967, Hughes 1975,
Wolschke-Bulmahn 2004), a concept echoed 1700 yearslater in the
Enlightenment (Roger 1997).Ciceros secondworldwas abuilt
envi-ronment. He might not have recognized sec-ond worlds in
sub-Saharan Africa, Australia,lowland South America, and much of
NorthAmerica, just as Renaissance and Enlighten-ment thinking did
not, considering such re-gions to be wilderness (Rafes 2002,
Roger1997). The second world, from a
nineteenth-centuryEuropeanperspective, incorporatednatural and
cultural things together, often ina garden-likesetting, as
seenespeciallyinItalyandGermany(Hall 2005, Wolschke-Bulmahn 2004).
The garden as a spatially de-ned landscape involving nature and
cultureantedates European civilization, having
beenborrowedbyHellenisticsocietyfromEastAsia (Glacken 1967).The
garden is the underlying premise ofa landscape, for there humans
habitually in-teract with other living forms, both in acyclical
fashion, andinthelong-term(in-volving at least decades) and very
long-term(involving centuries), a concept known aslongue dur ee
(Braudel 1980). Historical ecol-ogists havediscernedgardens
inthemidstof seeming wilderness in both the Neotrop-ics
andPaleotropics andhave referredtothese as forest gardens, forest
elds, trail gar-dens, war gardens, man-made tropical
forests,cultural or anthropogenic forests, anddo-mesticated
landscapes (Bal ee 1989; Clement1999a; Denevan 1992, 2001, 2006;
Erickson2006; G omez-Pompa et al. 1987, 1990;Heckenberger et al.
2003; Janzen 1998; Posey1985; Posey &Bal ee 1989; Rival 2006).
Thesearedistinguishedfromcultural landscapes,which are not so much
disturbed by
humansasindexical(byiconicbiotaandplacesdis-cernibletothenakedeye)oflocalsocietiesandtheirlong-termhistoryinsitu(Stofeet
al. 2003). Historical ecologists also examineindexical functions of
biota in specic land-scapes affected by human activity over
time(Feely-Harnik2001, Verheyenet al. 2004,Walker 2000).There is a
long-standing division amongEuropean geographers and foresters
betweendomesticated (or culturalized) and
naturallandscapes(Alexander&Butler2004). Theconcept of pristine
forests is gradually beingreplacedwithamorehedgednotionofoldgrowth
forest. The notion of old growth for-est in Europe as well as North
America in-cludes forests that may have been disturbedby humans
although not for long periods oftime, so-called rst nature (Rudel
2002). In-creasing evidence, however, suggests interme-diate
disturbance may have lasting legacies, ofthe longue dur ee sort, in
terms of
redeningvegetationpatterns(Turner2005).Europesculturalizedlandscapesrunthegamutfromtreeless
zones to mature forests similar to for-mer woodland, yet none is
primary, althoughrelic species, such as lichens, bryophytes,
andmycorrhizal fungi, aswell asafewancienttrees, maystill
befound(Myers &Bazely2003). Historical geographer Sauer
proposed78 Bal eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded
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17:17that wherever humans had lived and im-pactedthe environment by
domestication,landscapes withdeterminatehistories weretheresult
(Olwig2003, Rival 2006, Sauer1956). Inmorerecent times, anumber
ofscholars have argued that agricultural
impactsdatingfromtheHolocenehaveessentiallytransformedtheworldsomuchthathardlyany
part of it is pristine per se and that, in-deed, humans created the
landscapes typicallyreferred to as examples of Holocene
environ-ments (Denevan 1992, Dickinson 2000). Thenotion that
certain species-rich forested land-scapes of Greater Amazonia,
Middle America,andWest Africawerepristinewildernesseswas challenged
by new data and interpreta-tions in the past two decades of the
twentiethcenturyfromanthropologists, geographers,and biologists
(Bal ee 1989; Bal ee &Campbell1990; Denevan 1992, 2001;
Fairhead &Leach1996; G omez-Pompa &Kraus 1992; G omez-Pompa
et al. 1987; Hayashida 2005; Leach &Fairhead2000; Posey1985;
Posey&Bal ee1989; Rival 2006; Stahl 1996; cf. Parker 1992),who
supplied evidence of human activity inthe origin of these
landscapes.In historical ecology, the concept of
land-scapetransformation, resultinginso-calledman-made forests
(Campbell et al. 2006,G omez-Pompa et al. 1987, Wiseman 1978),was
derived initially from evidence of agricul-ture and agroforestry;
more recent work sug-gests foraging and trekking societies have
alsoinuenced forest composition through activ-ities such as sowing
propagules of trees thatattract honeybees without using re for
for-est clearance (Zent & Zent 2004) and
aban-doningcampyetleavingchangesinspeciescompositionthatinvolvethecoexistenceofcrops
and noncrops (Politis 2001, Rival 2002,Rival 2006). The evidence of
classless societiesas disturbance agents that modied and
man-agedenvironments earlierregardedas sys-temic concatenations of
interactive, primevalbiota and physical elements represents, in
his-torical ecology, a divergence away from thecore postulates of
cultural ecology as well asequilibrium theory.OTHER ECOLOGIES,
OTHERHISTORIESThedistinctionbetweenhistorical ecologyandother
ecological viewpoints anddisci-plines has to do with
anthropocentrismin oneguise or another (Bal ee & Erickson
2006b).Historical ecology differs from cultural
ecol-ogyprincipallyonthecriterionof humanagency, as well as
adaptationtothe envi-ronment. Cultural ecology holds that
theenvironment is not transformable. Rather,humans must adapt their
cultures, technolo-gies, and populations to it. Typically
culturalecologycannot explainhigher-order
socialphenomenasuchascities, states, andtheirdependent hinterlands
because the core pos-tulates are based on the
environmentaldeterminismof societies withsimpletech-nologies (cf.
Cole & Wolf 1974).
Historicalmaterialismasaresearchprogram(Lakatos1999 [1973]) allows
for human agency in ini-tial appropriations from and
transformationsof nature (Wolf 1982) but does not conceiveof
theenvironment, oncechangedbyhu-man hands, exerting a longer-term
effect onsubsequent human cultures in the region ofthe changes (Bal
ee 1998a,b). Historical ma-terialismlackedthelongue dur ee
notionofthe Annales historical school, which would bedeveloped a
century later (Crumley 1998).Historical ecology differs
fromanthro-pological systems ecologyitself acritiqueof cultural
ecologybymovingawayfroma concern with the functionalist
adaptationsof humanbehaviortogivenenvironmentalconditions
andsteadystates of theecosys-tem(Wolf 1999; cf. Biersaack 1999).
Althoughhistorical ecology underscores the impor-tanceof
timeandcontingencyinenviron-mental change (Botkin 1990, Scoones
1999,Zimmerer2000), asdoesthenewecology,it is not
aformulatedrecordof geologicalchanges that took place in the
absence of hu-mans, astudyof humanresponsetonatu-ral catastrophes
(cf. Bilsky 1980), or
merelyrecordedhistoryorprehistoryofanyenvi-ronment(s). It differs
from the new ecology,www.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology
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17:17moreover, whichisnot acceptedasatermfor a distinctive model in
ecology (Zimmerer2000), by emphasizing ananthropocentrichistory.
Historical ecology involves a tripar-tite array of conceptions of
human time, bor-rowedfromtheAnnales, especiallythefol-lowing: (a)
ev enement (event) as a short-term,episodic phenomenon; (b)
conjoncture (cycle),involving repetitive statistical patterns over
adecade, quarter-century, or half-century or so;and (c) longue dur
ee, empirical patterns of his-tory and prehistory occurring over
centuries(Braudel 1980, Crumley 2003).Historical ecology has been
most of-ten conated with environmental history.Environmental
history is a fairly well-established interdisciplinary subject
(Beinart&McGregor 2003, Crosby2004, Hughes2001, Worster 1993),
but it is not a perspec-tive that articulates hard-core postulates,
suchas historical ecology does. In this sense, his-torical ecology
is not a part of environmentalhistory nor is it parallel to it as a
separate wayof thinking (cf. Moran 2000, Myllntaus
2001).Environmental history encompasses the fol-lowing: the
comparative historyof
humanactivityinwidelyseparatedbutstructurallysimilar environments
having similar politico-economic and historical conditions seen as
re-sulting in convergent behaviors, the history
ofgreenmovementsandtherelationofthesetogovernment policy,
thehistoryof envi-ronmental sciences and forestry, and the
his-toriographyof environmental historywrit-ing(Beinart
&Coates1995, Crosby2004,Hughes 2001, Worster 1994). Historical
ecol-ogy of a landscape, such as the Llanos de Mo-jos of Bolivia or
the Upper Xingu of Brazil(Erickson & Bal ee 2006, Heckenberger
et al.2003, Mann 2002), would not be coterminouswith environmental
history of the same be-cause historical ecology subscribes to a
singletheory of history and offers a model of
howandwhythelandscapeunderwenttransfor-mation, regardless of the
unique chronologyof events.Historical ecology differs from
landscapeecology(cf. Moran2000). Landscapeecol-ogy focuses on
spatial heterogeneity reectedinclustersof ecosystemsand,
withnotableexceptions (Hayashida2005, Turner2005),tendstoexclude,
asaprinciple, intermedi-ate human disturbance of environments
andtemporal changes in them as a qualitative fac-tor in landscape
transformation (e.g., Forman& Godron 1986, Turner 2005; see
critiquesby Crumley 1998, 2003; Denevan 2006). Theconcepts of
design, ecology, and architectureof landscapes in the modern senses
seem toenvisionre-educationof humanbeings
sotheycanlivemoreharmoniouslywithself-contained natural systems and
processes. Ba-sically landscape ecology does not involvehumans
recapturing indigenous or localknowledge that could be of use to
restorationecology (Gunn 1994), which, in at least oneof its
crucial theoretical aspects, authenticity,is close to or the same
as historical ecology(Anderson2001, Egan&Howell 2001a,b,Higgs
2003, Jones 2004).Historical ecology is sometimes comparedwith,
orthought tobethesameas, polit-ical ecology(e.g., Wolf 1999).
Manyhavedeemedthe termpolitical ecology a misnomerby statingthat it
concerns only politics andnotecology (Vayda & Walters 1999) and
that itdoesnt increase knowledge relevant to ecol-ogy and the life
sciences (Scoones 1999). Insomeways political ecologyis
moresimi-lar to environmental history with its
empha-sisonthecritiqueofconservationistmove-ments(Dove2001).
Political ecologydoes,however, comprise one feature relevant
tohistorical ecology, towit:
thepossibilityofunderstandingandapplyingthecritiqueofregnant
folkmodelsof
natureandtheen-vironmentforbuildingamoreenlightenedapproach to the
reconstruction of past land-scapes. Political ecologycouldbe
synony-mous with applied historical ecology, but theterm itself is
perhaps still used too widely
indisparatesensestorefertoasingleeldortheory.The anthropological
ecology of prac-tice(inuencedbythesociologyof PierreBourdieu)
instantiates the third hard-core80 Bal eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol.
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only.ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17postulateof
historical ecologybystressingthe differential environmental results
ob-tainedfromdisjunct economic andpoliti-cal histories in given
regions (Nyerges 1997,Porro 2005). The proposal of an evenemen-tal
(sic)oreventecology(Vayda&Walters1999) is bound to the
particularistic lim-itations of case-by-case studies, similar
tocultural ecology (Wolf 1982), and the omis-sionof
humanagencyinlandscapeforma-tion;
thereforeitdoesnotrepresentanewconcept. The notion of ev enement in
the An-nales isbut theshort-termepisodicfeatureaffecting the
formation of new landscapestheothers areconjonctures andlongue dur
ee(Braudel 1980, Crumley 1998), concepts
in-corporatedintothecorepostulates of his-torical ecology. These
postulates are, more-over, at variance with equilibrium theory
andsystems theoryessentially synonymsinecology.Historical ecologyis
unlike, andfunda-mentally at odds with, ecological systems the-ory
by a similar logicthe logic of the behav-iorofsentient,
sapientbeingswithculturalcapacitiesnotjusttotransformspecies-richenvironments
intobarrens of lowdiversityand landscape homogeneity, which clearly
hu-mans can do and have done, but also in certaincases to heighten
the species diversity of lo-cal environments through ongoing
resource-management practices. Historical ecologyanswers the call
for an anthropocentric as op-posedtoanecocentricor
geocentricecol-ogy (Bal ee & Erickson 2006a,b, Erickson
&Bal ee2006). Somethinkinginecologyin-terprets these practices
as always destructive,but that view is derived from the
misunder-standingofhumanagencyasaprincipleofsome disturbance of the
environment, whichat agivenlevel of intensitymaybeessen-tial
tosustainingdiversity itself, a ndingcomprehensible within a
historical-ecologicalviewpoint, which has afnities, as such,
withothermodelsincontemporaryecology, in-cluding
nonequilibriumdynamics (Botkin1990, Huston 1994, Turner 2005,
Zimmerer2000).HISTORICAL CONTINGENCYAND
ECOLOGICALSUCCESSIONEnvironmentsecosystems in systemstheoryundergo
histories of changes in
theirfundamentalcharacteristicssimilartosuitesor guilds of species
of plants andanimalsover time. Disturbance is the nomotheticorigin
of change (called succession) in speciescomposition in a locale,
and without it,ecosystemsdonotevolvetodisplayclimaxcommunities,
dened as ecosystems in theirmost mature state, with the highest
diversityof species. Equilibriumor systems theoryin ecology holds
that climatically stable,large-area (such as continental)
environmentssupport more readily climax
communitiesthatconsistforthemostpartoforganismsthatareK-selected,
thatis, organismswithlonglifespans, lownumbers of offspring,and
slow growth rates. With regard to forestcommunities, these would be
trees and otherstructural organisms (Huston 1994). Incontrast,
small (suchasinsular) ecosystemsconsist for themost part of
r-selectedor-ganisms, that is, plants with short life
spans,highnumbersofoffspring, andfastgrowthrates. These ecosystems
are more easilyinvaded by species from continents.
Becauseislandsdevelopthroughgeneticdriftclinesand endemism(as
withDarwins nches),they are also more prone to extinctions.
Thetheory, called island biogeography
theory(MacArthur&Wilson1967),proposesthatthe further an island
is from a continent, thehigher its endemismand species
diversityandthe higher the number of K-selectedorganisms. In
contrast, the closer an island isto a continent, all else being
equal, the lowerits diversity as a result of its susceptibility
toinvasions of organisms fromthe mainlandthat replace local biota
in the same or
similarnichesandthereforecausetheirextirpationandpossibleextinction(i.e.,
anoutcomeofcompetitive exclusion). The theory is elegantas a
qualitative model of the rise and fall ofspecies diversity on
islands (i.e., ecosystems)www.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology
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17:17buthasbeendeemedproblematicinquan-titativeprediction(Peters
1991, Walker &del Moral 2003) because it does not specify
ahumanorotherhistorical
parameterinthetransportofmanyinvasivespecies,someofwhich, as with
the brown tree snake on
Guam,havecascadingeffectsinnewenvironments(Fritts & Rodder
1998). The theory excludeshistory, and partly for that reason it
has beenhard to replicate in the real world of islanddiversity and
invasion biology (Huston 1994,Lomolino 2000, Simberloff
1997).Species invasionis one kind of disturbance.Disturbance
traditionally, infact, canbe bioticor abiotic. It can also be
cultural and histori-cal. When they are demonstrably natural
andunrelated to global warming, to ill-conceivedlevee and dike
construction, and to other sortsof human error, hurricanes and oods
are abi-otic disturbance agents that can account forthe reductions
of forests withmany
K-selectedspeciesandtheneargrasslandandsavannaenvironments replete
with r-selected species(Huston1994). Hurricanes andoods
canalsocause terrestrial environments to become ma-rine ones, for
example, by splitting islands intwo (Walker &del Moral 2003).
Biotic factorsinclude not only invasive species and their ef-fects
on local biodiversity (whether to lessenor replace it with new
species), but also or-ganisms that demonstrably alter the
landscapeinhabited by other life forms (Schmitz et al.1997,
Simberloff 1997).Humans effect and are inuenced bychanges in the
landscape. The ancient Greekdichotomy between physis (nature) and
nomos(culture) (Glacken 1967, Hughes 2001) thatforeshadows the
Cartesian dualismof thebody (material world) versus the mind
(think-ing) is inapplicable in understanding ecolog-ical succession
as modied or interfered withbyhumansasthedisturbanceagency.
His-torical ecologydeals not withthe synthe-sis of humans and the
environment, but fo-cuses on the result of their cyclical
interaction(conjoncture).Historically the more centralized the
po-litical regime (i.e., the more it is similar to astate), the
greater the potential for the reduc-tion of species diversity.
Advanced industrialtechnologies with fossil fuels have long
beenknown to reduce the genetic diversity of cropplants (Kates et
al. 1990). Ancient civilizationsusing intensive agriculture (with
terracing, ir-rigation, and fertilizers) reduced the diversityof
traditional cultivars in agricultural elds asaresult of
taxationexigenciesonanarrowrange of foodstuffs (Zimmerer 1993).
Inter-estingly, human depopulation, as occurred
intheAmazon(andintheAmericasgenerallyand Australia) after contact
as a result of theintroduction of new pathogens, can lower
theagrodiversity of landraces in areas where localknowledge and
behavior are key to the
man-agementoftraditionalcrops,includingtreecrops (Clement 1999a,b).
If genetic diversitybelow that of the species rank is
consideredpart of a regions diversity, then gamma diver-sity has
been diminished as a result of peo-ple being removed from the
landscape. De-population and other consequences of contacthave led
to the loss of agriculture and otherbasic technology altogether,
even the disap-pearance of a societys cultural ability
tomanu-facture re, a feature once thought a sociocul-tural
universal (Bal ee 2000, Cormier 2003).With regard to advanced
industrial agri-culture (Kates et al. 1990), fertilization
alonetendstoreducebiodiversity(Huston1994)byincreasingthecompetitionfornutrientsamong
species originally present on a plot. Itis a paradox of enrichment:
Areas of high pri-mary productivity (rich in nutrients) are of-ten
impoverished (but not always) in
speciesdiversity(Huston1994).Despitehighrain-fall,
largetractsoftropical rainforestshavebeen increasingly prone to
wildres as a resultof deforestation and possibly global
warmingartifacts of the twentieth century to date. Inthe future,
the spread of GMOs and their po-tential
foruncontrolledgeneowwithna-tivecrops(aresult inpart of efcient
dis-persal mechanisms, such as anemochory)
mayreduceagro-diversity(Altieri 2004, Burney1995/1996, Pilson &
Prendeville 2004). Butthe humanimpact onthe environment is82 Bal
eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from
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17:17highly variable, and historical ecologists
rec-ognizethateachlandscapeneedstobeun-derstood in terms of its
specic cultural andhistorical inuences onsuccessionwithoutprejudice
toward human nature.Ecologists recognizetwobasickinds ofsuccession:
primaryandsecondary. Primarysuccession refers to the initial
colonization ofa substrate that had no life on it before, such
asthe succession of organisms on newly formedvolcanic atolls or
emergent deltaic islands onthepoint bars of meanderingrivers.
Onalonger timescale, the succession of organismsin areas of former
glaciation is an example ofprimary succession, as is the
replacement ofentire phyla by newones over millions of
years(Huston1994). Secondary successionrefers tothe replacement of
organisms by other typesof organisms (such as K-selected by
r-selectedorganisms) on a substrate that has been dis-turbed, as is
the case with well-drained for-est lands when subjected to
hurricanes, torna-does, droughts, blowdowns (wind shear), and,as
has been especially well studied in the trop-ics, humandisturbance
by slash-and-burncul-tivation or some other form of extensive
agri-culture. In all cases, both in systems theoryand cultural
ecology, the idea is that follow-ing the disturbance, the
succession of guildsoforganismsproceedsanew:
Inthecaseoftropicalforests, forexample,
thesuccessionproceedsfromdominancebyther-selectedspecies tothe
climax, the dominance andhigh-est diversity of what are basically
K-selectedcommunities. This is the climax community,an ecological
systems concept dating fromtheearlytwentiethcentury(Huston1994).
Al-though equilibrium theory has many
defend-ers(Lomolino2000),anincreasingnumberof ecologists recognize
disturbance not as analienagentof changeinanecosystem,
butasabasicpartofthefunctionandmainte-nance of diversity (Botkin
1990, Huston 1994,Perry&Amaranthus 1997, Petraitis et al.1989,
Smith&Wishnie2000). Thedistur-bance they prognosticate is not
the removalof many species guilds (highly intense distur-bance),
but an ongoing disturbance of a muchFigure 1Simplied model of the
intermediate disturbance hypothesis. Taken fromMyers & Bazely
2003.smaller scale, called intermediate disturbance,suchas
broadcast reandchancetreefallsin a forest without which local
diversity (al-phadiversity) maynot befullyunderstood(Figure
1).Intermediate disturbance (through broad-cast burning, tree
cultivation, settlement, andsoil enrichment) has
beenseentoaccountfor forest islands in West Africa (Fairhead
&Leach1996, Leach&Fairhead2000). Evi-dence from Sierra
Leone indicates resourceexploitationandlandusehavevariedovertime,
as have rangelanduses insouthernAfrica(Beinart &Coates 1995,
Beinart &McGregor2003), withthepast useof forest sites
forfortresses, the conversion of forests into char-coal for
ironsmelting, andthe adoptionof newcash crops (such as peanuts);
such permuta-tions of society explainforest compositionandecology
today (Nyerges 1997, Scoones 1999;cf. Rudel 2002). Evidence from
Namibia andAngola indicates that activities of historickingdoms of
thelatenineteenthandearlytwentieth centuries expanded the frontier
oforchards of fruit trees of palm, marula,
bird-plum,g,andbaobabattheexpenseofsa-vanna (Kreike 2003).
Historical variation inlandscape features is probably conditionedby
changes in political complexity. Savannassometimes seem to result
from human choice(Erickson 2006, Scoones 1999).
Intermediatewww.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology 83Annu. Rev.
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only.ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17disturbance
throughcontrolled(broadcast)burning in African savannas, Brazilian
cerra-dos, andtheBolivianLlanos deMojos ap-pears topromote the
coexistence of
treesandgrassesbyincreasinglandscapehetero-geneity(Erickson2006,
Jeltschetal. 1998,Mistryetal. 2005).
Landscapeheterogene-ityinducesedgeeffectsthatcanreducethediversity
of species that require undisturbedforest for breeding, nesting,
and reproduction(Renfrewetal. 2005), butsometimeshabi-tat
fragmentation leads to net increases of di-versity (Fahrig 2003).
Contrasting viewpointshold that tropical forest islands on
landscapesdominated by savanna species are relics of
thePleistoceneandhenceshouldbeprotectedfrom human disturbance, the
assumed causeof savannization, yet mechanisms of
anthro-pogenicsuccessionhavebeendemonstrablyassociated with local
structural and species di-versity (Dove 2001, Fairhead & Leach
1996,Kreike 2003, Leach & Fairhead 2000).Intermediate
disturbance on a human scaleinvolves thepartial replacement of
speciesof anepisodic or cyclical nature onsmallplots of land, at
times as small as
treefall-sizedlightgapsandaslargeas20hectares(ha), as opposed to
major perturbations suchas clear-cutting, deforestation, selective
log-ging, ooding, and eutrophication.
Interme-diatedisturbancewouldnotconnoteinten-sication,
industrialization, or globalization,which can result in diminished
species diver-sity per unit land area through overuse,
fer-tilization, anderosion. Themeasurableef-fects of
intermediatedisturbancemediatedby humans refer at least to one of
the threetypes of species diversity recognized in ecol-ogy, alpha
diversity. Alpha diversityis thenumber of species on a restricted
locale withconstantenvironmentalparameters(suchasdrainage and soil
type). Intermediate distur-bance mediated by humans might also be
seenin beta diversity, which is diversity over an
en-vironmentalgradientsuchasslopeorrain-fall involving the distance
between adjoiningplotspreviouslysingledoutbyalphadiver-sity alone
(Campbell et al. 2006, Erickson &Bal ee 2006, Huston 1994). The
third type ofdiversity, gamma, is the diversity of an entireregion,
such as the Amazon Basin. With re-gard to the Amazon Basin, because
most ofthe species diversity predates the Pleistocene(Bush1994,
Vieira et al. 2001), prehistoric andearly colonial societies
probably had a negli-gible impact, except through the
introductionof invasive species (biological invasions),
thesespecies occurring in inverse proportionality topre-existing
species diversity in the locales ofintroduction. Gamma diversity of
Amazonialacks a single, simple explanation (Bush 1994);it requires
a complex model, grounded in his-torical ecology, capable of
accountingnot onlyfor physical and temporal factors of diverse
di-mensions, but also for human-mediated onesimpacting landscapes
over time. The conceptof ecological successionthe term
originallyusedinsystemsandequilibriumtheoryisstill useful ina
dynamic model of environmen-tal change entailing increases and
decreases ofbiological diversity (Huston 1994), the prin-cipal
focus of inquiry in ecology, but for dif-ferent reasons than in
systems ecology. Eco-logical successioninhistorical
ecologycanbecalledlandscapetransformation(anthro-pogenic
succession), of whichthere are severaltypes.Direct human impacts
can be qualitativelyassigned to a scale sensitive to time and
place,indicative of least perturbation (e.g., by pre-historic
foraging in the Arctic, the puna of theAndes, andthedesert of
theGreat Basin),whereaminimal
humansignatureremainsonthelandscapefromthat time, tomostperturbed
(e.g., by advanced industrial agri-culture and globalization),
where prehistoricsignatures are mostly erasedas a result of
com-plete replacements of guilds of species and
theland-useintensityinuencedbyworldwidedemand on agricultural labor
and commodi-ties (Kates et al. 1990, Rudel 2002). The inten-sity of
human impacts on landscapes may liein inverse proportionality to
species diversitythereon(Burney 1995/1996), regardless of therules
that govern access to common resourcesof the landscape (Alvard
&Kuznar 2001, Holt84 Bal eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98.
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October 2006 17:172005, Smith & Wishnie 2000). The
implicitcorollaryhypothesis is that wherehuman-mediated disturbance
was of the least inten-sity, species diversity would have
beenhighest.That viewpoint is a premise of wildernessareas.
TheseareWesternanalogstosacredgroves (Russell 1997), and their
implementa-tion over time has passively affected
speciesdistributionandbehavioronthelandscape,forexample,byconvertinghuntedgametoprotectedwildlife(Beinart&Coates1995).Sacred
groves have independent histories insub-Saharan Africa, East and
South Asia,and Mesoamerica (Byers et al. 2001, G omez-Pompa et al.
1990, Russell 1997), and theirfunction is to protect biotic
diversity.
Withoutsacredgrovesandwildernessareas,human-mediateddisturbancesmaylessendiversity,especially
if landscapes are not heterogeneousin situ (Turner 2005; cf.
Renfrew et al. 2005).In other words, to maintain diversity,
sacredgroves in diverse cultural contexts suggest afolk belief that
human-mediated disturbanceought to be excluded therein. Human
distur-bances of the environment, however, are ul-timately scalar
and temporal (Allenby 2000,Bal ee 1998b, Crumley 2001, Erickson
2000,Hayashida2005, Peterson&Parker 1998,Sheuyange et al. 2005)
and not in their genesissociobiological.Human-mediated disturbances
of certaintropicalforestlandscapesinprehistorymayhave
decreasedalpha diversity, or hadnomeasurable effect on it. Using
the Shannon-Weaver index of biodiversity, Lentz et
al.(2002)foundthatanthropogenicforestsre-sulting from ancient Maya
agriculture in Be-lize did not result in an increase in
biodiver-sity, although forest composition is
essentiallyanthropogeniconthestudyplots (seealsoCampbell etal.
2006, G omez-Pompaetal.1987, Wiseman 1978). Conversely, Lentzet al.
(2002) do not show a reduction in alphaor beta diversity as a
result of human impactsbecause prehistoric baseline inventories of
alltaxa are unavailable. Human-mediated distur-bance of lowland
Mesoamerica over time
ap-pearstohaveresultedinforestsdominatedbyafewspecies[intermsof
theirrelativebiomass andother components (e.g., rela-tive density
and frequency) of ecological im-portance]. These guilds of dominant
speciesare referred to as oligarchies (Campbell et al.2006, Peters
et al. 1989).Oligarchic forests (usually replete
withfruittreesandothereconomicplants)con-trast
withsacredgrovesorotherrelativelyundisturbed forests existing in
areas used bytraditional societies totheextent that tra-ditional
patterns of human-mediated distur-bance specically involving
broadcast andswidden burning result in a mosaic of land-scapes.
Recent work suggests such mosaicslandscape heterogeneitytend to
increasenot only density of wildlife, but also beta di-versity of
ora and fauna. Intermediate dis-turbancebytraditional
societiesemployingbroadcast reinAustralia, Africa, andtheNeotropics
has demonstrably resulted in in-creases of alpha diversity of
vegetation (Birdet al. 2005, Lunt &Spooner2005, Mistryet al.
2005, Pyne 1998, Sheuyange et al. 2005).Inotherwords,
intheseinstances, human-mediated intermediate disturbance and
man-agement of tropical forest biotas may be es-sential
totheexplanationof theirdiversityin situ. Homo sapiens in certain
socioeconomiccontexts withhistoricallydeterminedland-use strategies
may act as a keystone species inwhich the diversity of entire
landscapes overtime is dependent (Bal ee & Erickson
2006b,Denevan 2001, Erickson &Bal ee 2006, Mann2002, Storm
2002).PRIMARY AND SECONDARYLANDSCAPETRANSFORMATION
INAMAZONIAPrimary landscape transformationinthe Cen-tral andLower
AmazonBasininvolvedmoundbuildingaswellaschangesinrivercoursesto
effectuate the ease of transportation, withseeminglynegligible
effects onspecies di-versity (Neves &Petersen 2006, Rafes2002).
The effects, if any, on alpha and betawww.annualreviews.org
Historical Ecology 85Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98.
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October 2006 17:17diversity are unknown from prehistoric
ma-nipulationofsoilsanddrainageintheUp-per Xingu (Lower Amazon) by
approximatelyAD 1000 (Heckenberger et al. 2003), as wellas in other
areas of Amazon Dark Earth (an-thropogenic soils) (Erickson 2003).
Increasesinalphadiversityoforaandfaunabyin-digenous resource
management and use, how-ever, havebeenreportedinnumerous
en-vironmentsintheNeotropics(Bal ee1993,Fedick 1995, Politis 2001,
Posey 1985, Rival2002, Stahl 2000, Zent & Zent 2004).
Land-scapes of the Kaapor, Guaj a, and Temb e Indi-ans of
Pre-Amazonia (easternmost Amazonia,of approximately10,000km2)
includehighforests (relativelyundisturbed)
andoldfal-lowforests[ofintermediateindigenousdis-turbance, dating
from 40 to 150 years ago (cf.Myers & Bazely 2003)]. Old fallow
forests in-stantiate anthropogenic secondary succession.Forest
inventories (completed using standardbiological inventory
procedures as discussedin Campbell et al. 2006) of 4 ha of old
fallowand 4 ha each of nearby high forest across Pre-Amazonia
showed that (a) tree alpha diversitymeasures between fallow forest
and high for-est were insignicantly different; (b) adjacentplots of
high forest and fallow forest
sharedonlyapproximatelyone-halfthenumberofsharedspecieswithininventoryplotsofei-ther
type regardless of distance between thosemore similar plots in the
same category; and(c) the effect is a net gain in both alpha
andbeta diversity, the latter involving the gradi-ent of time
(Huston 1994), the high forest be-ing older than the fallow forests
(Bal ee 1993,Bal ee 1998b).Secondary forests are not necessarily
moreimpoverished in diversity than primary forests(Schulzeetal.
2004). Evenifsoilsinmanysecondary forests are signicantly more
fer-tilethanthoseofprimaryforests(Denevan2001, 2006; Erickson 2003;
Erickson & Bal ee2006; Neves & Petersen 2006), the
secondaryforest soils have not noticeably been reportedto suffer
fromthe paradox of enrichment. Thehabitat of the Sirion o Indians
of the BolivianAmazon encompasses a heterogeneous land-scape of
well-drained forests on relic mounds,slightly inundated forests at
the base of suchmounds (called pampa forest), and
seasonallyinundated and poorly drained savannas, whichaccount for
approximately two-thirds of thelandscape (Erickson 2003, 2006;
Erickson &Bal ee 2006; Townsend 1996). Mound forestsare all
anthropogenic and date from approx-imately 500 to 1000 years since
the time oftheir construction and continuous
habitation;pampaforestsarealsoanthropogenic, arti-facts of mound
construction. Two 1-ha treeinventories, one of a mound forest 18 m
inheight and the other of a nearby pampa for-est, showed (a) a
similarity in the number ofspecies, with 55 on the mound forest and
53in the pampa forest; (b) a shared 24 speciesbetween the two
forests (yielding a large per-centage compared with Pre-Amazonia);
(c) atotal number of species in both forests of 84[(55 +53) (24) =
84]; (d) anda dominance ofoligarchies in both forest types (the 10
ecolog-ically most important species on the moundinventory
constitute 65.4% of all importancevalues of all trees on the plot,
and the top 10on the pampa inventory represent 70.9% ofall
importance values of all trees on that plot).The oligarchies are,
however, somewhat dif-ferent (with one species of palmhaving an
im-portancevalueof46.21onthemoundand9.21 on the pampa and another
palm specieshavinganimportancevalueof
41.2onthemoundand83.27onthepampa), whichisprobably a result of
slope (Erickson & Bal ee2006). Savannas are the original,
oldest land-scape, and these are maintained by periodicburning
(Erickson 2006). Flooding occurs inthe savanna every year, and it
alternates with amarked dry season. The total number of vas-cular
plant species in the savanna is less than20 (Townsend 1996), with
sedges and grassesby far most dominant.The primary landscape
transformationthat accruedat the Ibibate
MoundCom-plex(themoundandadjoiningpampafor-est) wouldbe,
inecological terms, a pri-mary succession, althoughthat
termmostcommonlyexcludesanthropogenesisof the86 Bal eeAnnu. Rev.
Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.orgby
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only.ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17landscape (e.g.,
Huston 1994). The
transfor-mationinvolvedasweepingreplacementofsavannaspecies
withood-intolerant trees,havinganalphadiversityof several ordersof
magnitude higher than the savanna. Com-parable mounds, specically
prehistoric shellmiddens (including gastropods and bivalves ofmany
different species) in southwest FloridaandsoutheasternLouisiana,
whichsupporthigher diversity than any nearby marshes re-gardless of
salinity levels, represent human-mediated increases in alpha
diversity (Kidder1998, Marquardt 1992). Therefore forestecology in
these cases of primary successionwithout natural causes is actually
an artifactof culture and society. Perhaps to representbetter and
distinguish the impact of human-mediated disturbance of the
environment,given that it is scalar and temporal (Peterson&
Parker 1998, Sheuyange et al. 2005),
oneshouldthereforerefertoprimaryandsec-ondarylandscapetransformationwhendis-cussing
biotic and environmental change on ahumanscale of time. Inother
words, alpha andbeta diversity are amenable to analysis in allthree
modes of historical time (Braudel 1980)and are hence the denitive
material of his-torical ecology.INVASIVE SPECIES ANDLANDSCAPE
HISTORIESBiological invasions sometimes refer only
toinvasivespeciesthat replaceother(usually)structurallysimilar
species inthenewen-vironment, but the termhere refers bothto
invasive species in the conventional senseand invasive diseases
(Turner 2005), includ-ing bacterial, protozoan, viral, and prion
in-fections, that take on epidemic characteristicsin regard to
previously unexposed native oraand fauna, including humans (Table
1). Theintegrationof landscape ecology and epidemi-ology (Turner
2005) is analogous to the recog-nition in historical ecology that
human activ-ity has been associated with a variety of newpathogens
and their distribution and that hu-man societies political
organization mirrorstheir susceptibility to epidemic disease, as
wellas their potential to generate biological inva-sions in new
environments (Newson 1998).Biological invasions that involve the
trans-ferandspreadofinvasivespeciesfromonepointtoanotherhavebeentermedsucces-sion
in action (Myers & Bazely 2003). Inva-sive species are
introduced (exotic) species ofplants and animals that have become
weedysupplanters of existing(native) ora andfauna.Denitions vary,
but usually weedy organismsare considered out of place; they
multiply andspread rapidly at the expense of other
organ-isms(Crosby2004, Myers&Bazely2003).Only a minority of
introduced species becameinvasive. Thesuccessofinvasivespecies,
asweeds, depends on biotic and historical fac-tors, alone or in
combination, specic in eachcase. The invasive species may have no
nat-ural enemies in the place of introduction (aswith the Brazilian
rubber trees in Malaysia), aview originally proposed by Darwin
(Hierroet al. 2005), or they may ll an empty niche inthe place of
introduction (Hierro et al. 2005).They may have higher numbers of
duplicatechromosomes (suchas tetraploids),
whichgivethemgreaterreproductivesuccess,asisthecase of all invasive
grass species from
EuropeinNorthAmerica(Myers&Bazely2003).Structurally, invasive
species are likely to beruderal (Hierroet al. 2005,
Huston1994)rather than treelike, but there are many ex-ceptions.
They may exude secondary metabo-lites toxic to native biota but not
to others intheir place of origin (Hierro et al. 2005). Inva-sive
species may have coexisted with humanslonger than the affected
(replaced) species intheplaceof their introductionandsubse-quent
expansion (Burney 1995/1996, Hierroet al. 2005). Finally,
propagules of many in-vasive species are located closer to
shippinglanes in their points of origin and in their ini-tial
places of dispersion (Hierro et al. 2005)and hence are easily
transported often as bal-last (Burney 1995/1996, Crosby 2004,
Russell1997). Biological invasionssincetheemer-genceof modernhumans
usuallyhaveoc-curred with historical agency; these are
calledwww.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology 87Annu. Rev.
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17:17Table1Somemodernhuman-mediatedinvasivespeciesanddiseasesTaxonCommonnameOriginNewenvironmentDateestablishedUse(ifany)Agavesp.CenturyplantMexico,SouthwestUnitedStatesSouthernAfricaTwentiethcenturyFencingAvianinuenzaBirduEastAsia?Earlytwenty-rstcentury(H5N1virustypeAinuenza)BoigairregularisBrowntreesnakeSouthPacicGuam19451950CasuarinaesquisetifoliaAustralianpineAustraliaSouthFloridaEarlytwentiethcenturyWindbreakScenicbywayCeratostomellaulmiiDutchelmdiseaseEuropeNorthernUnitedStatesLatenineteenthcenturyCryphonectriaparasiticaChestnutblightEuropeNortheasternUnitedStatesLatenineteenthcenturyMelaleucaquinquenerviaMelaleucaAustraliaSouthFlorida1906OrnamentalMyobacteriumbovisBovinetuberculosisNorthAmericaSouthernAfricaLatetwentiethcenturyMyocastorcoypusNutriaSouthAmericaLouisiana,Florida1941FurRattusrattusBlackratAsiaviaEuropeNorthAmericaSixteenthcenturySchinusterebinthifoliusBrazilianpepperSouthernBrazilSouthFloridaNineteenthcenturyOrnamentalUlexeuropeausGorseEuropeNewZealandNineteenthcenturySources:Beinart&Coates1995,Burney1995/1996,Caronetal.2003,Fritts&Rodder1998,Hierroetal.2005,Kidder1998,Myers&Bazely2003,Russell1997,Schmitzetal.1997,Simberloff1997,Simberloffetal.1997.88
Bal eeAnnu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from
www.annualreviews.orgby Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) on
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17:17human-mediated invasions (Myers & Bazely2003). [Note that
not all of these bio-logical invasions have been human medi-ated:
For example, because of their
superiorswimmingabilities,hippopotami,elephants,and deer hopped
fromone island to an-other across open seas during the
Quaternary(Burney 1995/1996).] Regardless of the trans-port agent,
biological invasions have been theprincipal proximate cause of
extirpations andextinctions of native ora and fauna
(Burney1995/1996, Myers &Bazely 2003, Pimm1991)
whencomparedwithothers suchasoverexploitation(as withextinctions of
theCarolina parakeet and the Giant Auk) and lo-cally cascading
effects of the removal of singu-larly important species (keystone
species) onwhich other species
depend.Invasivespeciesareoftentransportedtonew destinations
accidentally (Crosby 2004,Myers & Bazely 2003) as in ship
bal-last (Crosby 2004, Myers &Bazely 2003,Pilson
&Prendeville 2004, Russell 1997,Simberloff et al. 1997), the
case, for ex-ample, with red tides (toxic dino-agellates)(Burney
1995/1996), a phenomenon that in-creased signicantly after
approximately 1500(Crosby2004). Perhapsjustasoften, how-ever,
invasivespecieshavebeenintroducedintentionally (before their
invasive features inthe new environment were known) to fullldesired
functions, including as ornamentals,windbreaks, scenicbyways,
erosioncontrol,fencing, and livestock feed (Beinart &
Coates1995, Myers & Bazely 2003, Simberloff et al.1997).
Insomecases, thesespeciesarein-dicative of landscapes inhabited and
modiedby human societies in ancient times, as
withtheKentuckycoffeetree, Americanchest-nut, andbutternut,
propagatedatlongdis-tances from their original distribution in
pre-historic North America, and the walnut andsweet chestnut in the
British Isles, taken therebytheRomansintherstmillenniumAD(Russell
1997).The restorationist (and conservationist)notion that native
species in situ are su-periorandpreferabletointroducedspeciesis
traceable to nineteenth-century Europeanthinking that conjoined
culture and wild-nerness into a single landscape (Hall 2005),such
as the German Naturgarten (Wolschke-Bulmahn 2004). Specically
regarding diver-sity, goals of restoration ecology that
includeeradication of exotic species can be traced toantiquity,
with Platos doctrine on the desir-ability of high species
diversitythe worldis the better, the more [living] things it
con-tains (Glacken 1967)insofar as the richerthe species diversity,
the greater the resilienceof the area to biological invasion
(Pimm1991;cf. Simberloff 1997). Platofurther thought thestate of
nature was only bountiful when ac-tively managed by humans (Hall
2005). Morerecent study of Mediterranean so-called ru-ined
landscapes suggests many represent theanthropogenicexpansionof
forests richinspecies diversity in the region, not the
reverse(Grove & Rackham 2003).Biological invasions have caused
re-ductions and extirpations of numerousspecies through mechanisms
including directcompetitive exclusion (Burney 1995/1996,Simberloff
et al. 1997). In the case of intro-duced pathogens, their success
is only miti-gated by the extent to which a host popula-tion
survives and can be a reservoir for futureendemic
propagation(Newson1998). Thespecies barrier between humans and
other an-imals is effectively broken down by diseasesthat are
anthropozoonotic (the vector human,infecting other animals), such
as tuberculosis,measles, and human herpes virus (Karesh &Cook
2005), and by habitat loss [an
extremeexampleofhabitatfragmentation, whichina general sense does
not always cause
re-ductionsinspeciesdiversity(Fahrig2003)],accounting for changes
in relations betweenpathogensandhosts,
aswithchronicwast-ingdiseaseofmuledeer,
white-taileddeer,andRockyMountainelk(Farnsworthetal.2005). Malaria
seems to be both zoonotic (thevector an animal, infecting humans)
and an-thropozoonoticintherelationshipbetweentheGuaj
apeopleandtheirpetmonkeysinAmazonian Brazil. Specically, the
reservoirwww.annualreviews.org Historical Ecology 89Annu. Rev.
Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.orgby
Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) on 03/11/14. For personal use
only.ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17for malaria in this
case seems to alternate be-tween humans and monkeys (Cormier
2005).Somepathogensdevelopedinlivestockdo-mesticates have jumped
species barriers sev-eral times. Bovine tuberculosis (from
domes-tic cattle) has infected wild bison in Canada,deerinMichigan,
andCapebuffalo, lions,leopards, cheetahs, greater kudus, and
chacmababoons in South Africa (Caron et al.
2003,Karesh&Cook2005). Avianinuenza (H5N1type A inuenza virus),
which has potential tobecome pandemic, is notable for high
mor-bidity as well as for having the potential
formultiplevectors:wildbirds,housecats,bigcats, chickens, pigs, and
humans, all of whichhave human-mediateddistributions
andinter-actions (Normile 2005). Scrapie (a prion dis-ease) in
sheep jumped the species barrier andbecame mad cow disease in
cattle, a strain ofwhich appears to have crossed the species
bar-riertohumansasvariantCreutzfeldt-Jakobdisease (Karesh &
Cook 2005). Disease ecol-ogytotheextent thatit linkshumansandother
biota, by affecting distributions on thelandscape of both, becomes
more fully com-prehensible within the temporality of histori-cal
ecology (Newson 1998, Turner 2005).The morphology and behavior of
invasivebiota may be predictable (they may be
weedy,opportunistic,andgeneticallyplasticwithacapacity to mutate
rapidly and, in some
cases,toinfectotherorganismsandjumpspeciesbarriers), but biological
invasions do not nec-essarily all result in net reductions of
alpha,beta, or even gamma diversity. Indeed, manyr-species invaded
K-dominated environmentsbefore the advent of the Homo migrations
outof Africa at the beginning of the Pleistocene,and initial modern
humans did not have manyinvasive species other than head lice and a
fewothers, none of which were domesticated, totransport
withthem(Burney 1995/1996). Thequestion then is how long must a
species existina givenenvironment tonolonger be consid-ered
invasive? An arbitrary classication forinvasive plants is used in
European forestry,wherebyarchaeotypesexistedontheconti-nent
before1500andneophytes arethoseplants arriving after 1500; other
species ori-gins are simplyunknown, andthe speciesare denoted as
cryptogenic (Myers & Bazely2003). Some invasive species in fact
functionas keystone species, and even their removalmaynot
causeareturntotheuninvadedstate (Myers &Bazely 2003). This is
arguablythe case with invasive species that have alteredthe
fundamental structural characteristics oflandscapes, suchas
melaleuca trees, whichform woodlands in Florida where
previouslythere were none, hence altering the distribu-tion of
numerous other species of ora andfauna (Schmitz et al. 1997,
Simberloff 1997).DISCUSSION ANDCONCLUSIONSOn the basis of the
notion that native speciesare more desirable than exotic ones, not
onlyfor aesthetics but for reasons related to pro-tecting biotic
diversity, efforts in restorationecology have tended to focus on
the removaland eradication of invasive species. These
ef-fortshavemetwithmixedresults. Restora-tion ecology (applied
historical ecology) es-sentially requires the knowledge of
referenceconditions of a past state of the landscape toat-tain
authenticity (Egan &Howell 2001b, Hall2005, Hayashida 2005,
Higgs 2003, Jones2004).Historical
ecologycansupplytherefer-enceconditions neededfor
authenticityoflandscape reconstruction(Egan&Howell2001a,b,
Hayashida 2005, Higgs 2003).
Thesourcesvaryandarederivedfromresearchinpaleoecology,
ethnohistory, history, andarchaeology (Crumley 1994, 2003;
Erickson2003; Hayashida2005; Heckenbergeretal.2003; Kidder 1998;
Turner 2005); fromethnography and ethnobiology (Bal ee 1993,Posey
1985, Posey & Bal ee 1989, Rival 2002,Zent&Zent2004);
frombiological inven-tory work (Campbell et al. 2006, Erickson
&Bal ee 2006, Turner 2005); and from researchon symbols and
language. Landscapes, as gar-dens, communicate meaning about their
usersand owners in the Peruvian Andes (Finerman90 Bal eeAnnu. Rev.
Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.orgby
Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) on 03/11/14. For personal use
only.ANRV287-AN35-05 ARI 11 October 2006 17:17& Sackett 2003).
Knowledge of archaic culti-gens is retainedinmemory
andreectedinrit-ual in Borneo and elsewhere in Southeast
Asia(Dove1999).
Languagecatalogspaststatesoflandscapesbycurrenttopographicterms(Russell
1997); it also embodies past methodsof resource exploitation, such
as agriculturein prehistoric equatorial Africa, reconstructedby
historical-linguistic study of living Bantulanguages(Vansina1990).
Languageretainsevidence of former economic valorization ofspecies
and landscapes, as with the cacao ex-port cycle from the Amazon in
the eighteenthcentury, reected in the indigenous borrow-ing of a
nonnative termfor cacao even thoughthe tree is native (Bal ee
2003). Marking rever-sals for biota represent a chronology of
land-scape transformation inscribed in
vocabulary,suchasthechange,inmanyMesoamericanlanguages, in the name
for sheep, introducedfrom Spain, to the original name for
white-tailed deer, a native forest animal but increas-ingly rare as
a result of the invasion of pasturefor sheep grazing, and vice
versa (Witkowski& Brown 1983). Historical ecology is
inter-disciplinary, and in one of its disciplines, an-thropology,
it is clearly intersubdisciplinary.Applied historical ecology may
become theholisticengagementofknowledgefromdi-verse disciplines for
the benet of human so-cieties and selected biota and landscapes. It
isderived from several elds with the
objectiveofdeterminingreferenceconditionsofpastlandscapes with the
highest degree of authen-ticityfortheperiodchosenforrestoration.The
remaining problem, in terms of the ap-plications of historical
ecology, concerns po-litical questions as to who will be
privilegedin determining the desired time depth (Higgs2003, Jones
2004) and the associated state ofhistorical knowledge(Anderson2001,
Hall2005) about the landscapes to be restored.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSFor
helpful discussion and suggestion of references, I am indebted to
David Campbell, ClarkL. Erickson, and Charbel Ni no El-Hani. For
initial bibliographic assistance, I thank NathalieDajko. I
gratefully acknowledge the library staff and Ecology Division of
Florida Gulf CoastUniversity for making bibliographic resources
available to me during the months when TulaneUniversity libraries
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de Sao Paulo (USP) on 03/11/14. For personal use only.Contents ARI
13 August 2006 13:30Annual Review ofAnthropologyVolume 35,
2006ContentsPrefatory ChapterOn the Resilience of Anthropological
ArchaeologyKent V. Flannery p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
1ArchaeologyArchaeology of Overshoot and CollapseJoseph A. Tainter
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p 59Archaeology and Texts: Subservience or
EnlightenmentJohn Moreland p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 135Alcohol:
Anthropological/Archaeological PerspectivesMichael Dietler p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p 229Early Mainland Southeast Asian Landscapes in the
FirstMillennium a.d.Miriam T. Stark p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 407The Maya
CodicesGabrielle Vail p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 497Biological
AnthropologyWhat Cultural Primatology Can Tell Anthropologists
about theEvolution of CultureSusan E. Perry p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
171Diet in Early Homo: A Review of the Evidence and a New Model
ofAdaptive VersatilityPeter S. Ungar, Frederick E. Grine, and Mark
F. Teaford p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p 209Obesity in Biocultural PerspectiveStanley J. Ulijaszek and
Hayley Lonk p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 337ixAnnu. Rev.
Anthropol. 2006.35:75-98. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.orgby
Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) on 03/11/14. For personal use
only.Contents ARI 13 August 2006 13:30Evolution of the Size and
Functional Areas of the Human BrainP. Thomas Schoenemann p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
379Linguistics and Communicative PracticesMayan Historical
Linguistics and Epigraphy: A New SynthesisSren Wichmann p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p 279Environmental DiscoursesPeter M uhlh ausler and Adrian Peace
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 457Old Wine, New
Ethnographic LexicographyMichael Silverstein p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
481International Anthropology and Regional StudiesThe Ethnography
of FinlandJukka Siikala p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
p p p p p