The implications of hunter-gatherer burning will also need to be fully considered in evaluating the hypothesis presented by Dull et al. (2010) that changing fire regimes in Late Holocene and early Colonial times may have Depsipeptide been important catalysts for environmental changes. The rapid colonization of California by agents from mission and managerial colonies had a devastating impact on the landscape management practices of local hunter-gatherer groups. As we outline elsewhere (Lightfoot

et al., 2013:94–95), the development of the agrarian-ranching economies by Spanish-Mexican and Russian colonists had reverberating consequences for hunter-gatherers living in outlying lands. As missionaries and merchants built up their colonial settlements, field this website systems, and livestock herds, they increasingly encroached on the anthropogenic landscapes of local indigenous populations. The onslaught of alien weeds, free-range cattle, sheep, and pigs, and changes in local hydrology due

to irrigation systems disrupted local ecosystems that were the livelihood of California Indians. Furthermore, it did not take long for the colonial intruders to implement policies prohibiting indigenous burning of the landscape. Once colonial infrastructures were established – whether extensive mission complexes or a trade outpost with outlying fields and ranches – they were very vulnerable to fires that they did not control. Prohibitions against Indian fires were put into place by the Spanish as early as 1793 (Timbrook et al., 1993:129–134), and these restrictions were upheld into the nineteenth century by the Mexican government, as exemplified by the order issued by General Mariano Vallejo prohibiting the use

of fire by Indians in the north San Francisco Bay area. The cumulative effect of this long period of native fire cessation was the loss of intimate Casein kinase 1 knowledge about the use of fire for managing landscapes by later generations of some Indian groups (Peri et al., 1985:91). There is little doubt that the coming of managerial and mission colonies (as well as later settler colonies) harkened major changes in indigenous landscape management practices, particularly for those involving prescribed fires. Although native peoples remained a crucial component of the post-colonial world in California, their relationships with the environment underwent modifications as their numbers thinned dramatically from diseases, overwork, and violence and many increasingly became incorporated into colonial programs as seasonal or full-time laborers (Lightfoot et al., 2013:95–98).