The Natural Landscape of Fort Dobbs

The Natural Landscape of Fort Dobbs. . Before European colonization, the landscape in this region was a type of open, temperate grassland now known aa Piedmont prairie. Interspersed with stands of trees, the grasslands were grazed by animals like elk and bison, which helped to keep the landscape open. Fire was also an essential part of the prairie's ecology: it cleared away woody plants and debris and allowed grass and wildflowers to regenerate. Some of these were wild fires, but many others were set by local American Indians such as the Catawba and the Saponi in order to maintain the land., When European settlers arrived on the Piedmont prairie in the 1700s, they called it a "savanna," another term for a grassy plain. They introduced European farming techniques that transformed the landscape and altered the ecosystem, destroying or driving away native plants and animals. However, isolated pockets of prairie survived and have been identified in recent decades, leading to restoration efforts at several sites across the Carolinas., English naturalists published some of the earliest written accounts of the Piedmont prairie landscape., After his travels, nearby in 1701, John Lawson wrote:, We pass'd through a delicious Country, (none that I ever saw exceeds it.) We saw fine bladed Grass, six Foot high, along the Banks of these pleasant Rivulets., Mark Cately described the terrain he saw a decade later:, Many spacious Tracts of Meadow-Land are confined by these rugged Hills, burdened with Grass six feet high. Other of these Vallies are replenished with Brooks and Rivulets of clear Water, whose banks are covered with spacious tracts of Canes... Pine barren, Oak and Hiccory-Land, as has been before observed to abound in the lower parts of the Country, engross also a considerable share of these upper parts.