eBook - ePub
Forgotten Landscapes
How Native Americans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn From It
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Forgotten Landscapes
How Native Americans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn From It
About this book
Rediscover the thriving civilizations of Pre-Columbian America and learn how Native ingenuity transformed the landscape into a flourishing world we can still learn from today
North America was not empty nor were its inhabitants savages when Europeans arrived in 1492. Quite the opposite, North America was thickly populated by indigenous people who lived in clean cities, had a thriving economy, and transformed the landscape into bountiful productivity. Forgotten Landscapes reveals the incredible extent to which Native Americans manipulated and shaped their surrounding environs through agricultural practices and urban engineering, resulting in one of the most prosperous civilizations of their time.
Well before European contact, North American cities and villages were bound together by an intricate trade network. Today, Spiro Mound in rural Oklahoma is a few piles of dirt, not on the road to anywhere. But at the time of the Mississippian civilization, about a thousand years ago, it was one of the largest cities in the world. With the controlled use of fire, Native Americans had transformed thick forests into open woodlands and expanded the ranges of prairies. Through organized hunting, Natives controlled the populations of prey animals such as passenger pigeons, and when Native populations grew large enough, they developed agriculture including irrigated crops, and even orchards.
In this fascinating and overdue book, author Stanley A. Rice shows readers the Pre-Columbian landscape of America that has been largely forgotten.
North America was not empty nor were its inhabitants savages when Europeans arrived in 1492. Quite the opposite, North America was thickly populated by indigenous people who lived in clean cities, had a thriving economy, and transformed the landscape into bountiful productivity. Forgotten Landscapes reveals the incredible extent to which Native Americans manipulated and shaped their surrounding environs through agricultural practices and urban engineering, resulting in one of the most prosperous civilizations of their time.
Well before European contact, North American cities and villages were bound together by an intricate trade network. Today, Spiro Mound in rural Oklahoma is a few piles of dirt, not on the road to anywhere. But at the time of the Mississippian civilization, about a thousand years ago, it was one of the largest cities in the world. With the controlled use of fire, Native Americans had transformed thick forests into open woodlands and expanded the ranges of prairies. Through organized hunting, Natives controlled the populations of prey animals such as passenger pigeons, and when Native populations grew large enough, they developed agriculture including irrigated crops, and even orchards.
In this fascinating and overdue book, author Stanley A. Rice shows readers the Pre-Columbian landscape of America that has been largely forgotten.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
- Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
- Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Forgotten Landscapes by Stanley A. Rice in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Introduction: The View from Mantle Rock
- 1 Welcome to America: Before 1492
- 2 Forgotten Fires: How Natives Used Fire to Manage the Landscape
- 3 Masters of the Hunt: How Native Hunting and Fishing Controlled Animal Populations
- 4 Farm or Forest? Agriculture in Prehistoric America
- 5 The Blessings of Water: Irrigation in Prehistoric America
- 6 Little Paradises: Orchards in Prehistoric Native America
- 7 European Diseases: The Beginning of the End of Native America
- 8 A Toxic Paradise: The San Joaquin Valley as the Ultimate White Monoculture Dream
- 9 Toward a Healthier World, with a Little Help from Your Local Natives
- Epilogue: What We Have Lost, and What We Can Regain
- Appendix
- Notes
- Dedication and Acknowledgments