Managing a Dynamic Landscape

Managing a Dynamic Landscape. Machicomoco State Park. , Starting around 2,000 years ago, the population of Native peoples living along the waters of the Chesapeake Bay began to rise significantly and to more extensively shape their surrounding environment through clearing forests and constructing large camps along rivers. Archeological evidence indicates that Native people began to use fire to create an intentional mosaic of cleared land, grasslands, and forests. The controlled burn strategies employed by Native peoples here and across large parts of North America provide a sophisticated model of land management practices. , , This parkland and the surrounding landscape developed from a complicated intertwining of natural and human histories. Thirty-five million years ago, a large meteor crashed into the waters along the Atlantic coast, creating a massive crater that shaped the Chesapeake Bay. Over the next several million years, sea levels rose and fell, and the bay alternated between dry land and shallow sea. , , About 10,000 years ago, warming temperatures triggered sea level rise, pushing seawater into the lower portions of Virginia’s rivers and creating the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal ecology. The Chesapeake Bay is part of an estuary, the mouth of a river system where freshwater streams meet ocean tides. The Chesapeake estuary assumed its current state about 5,000 years ago, with wide rivers flowing into the bay, and tides pushing salty water upstream. Native peoples learned how to tend estuary-based ecological systems and how to sustain thriving societies with these practices. The ancestors of the Powhatans began to construct larger settlements and transform the landscape by clearing trees with stone axes. Accumulations of food debris, called middens, contained the remains of oysters, clams, crabs, along with pottery and stone tools. An excavated midden located across the River from here contained an estimated 200 million oyster shells. Powhatans across the Chesapeake region harvested billions of oysters. Even so, the sizes of shells and their numbers in the maddens did not decline over time, suggesting that Native people carefully managed their harvests. , , Subsistence Landscape: Placemaking in Tsenacomacoh is based on the relational orientation of land and water, as seen from the vantage point of a canoe. This was embedded in the language and naming before the rise of agriculture among the Virginia Algonquians. , , The Five Seasons Round: Showing Seasonal Density of Settlement Patterns , Popanow During Popanow (POH-pub-now; winter departure from towns for communal hunts) Powhatans leave their riverside towns for hunts in the forests. , , Cattapeuk In Cattapeuk ( KAT-uh-pook; early spring season of planting and fish runs) men fish and clear fields and women plant gardens with corn, beans, and squash. , , Cohatayough During Cohatayough ( koh-HAT-uh-yaw; summer season of foraging wild plant foods) Powhatans move between towns and foraging in forests. , , Nepinough At Nepinough time ( NEHP-in-naw; later summer caring of corn) harvest time begins. , , Taquitock During Taquirock ( TACK-wih-tawk; corn harvest early in the fall) Powhatans gather in the towns of local chiefs for feasts and ceremonies.