An 11,000 Year Fire History of a Coastal Temperate Rainforest in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia
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AN 11,000 YEAR FIRE HISTORY OF A COASTAL TEMPERATE RAINFOREST IN PRINCE RUPERT HARBOUR, BRITISH COLUMBIA by Jonathan William Duelks A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTURAL STUDIES (Anthropology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2021 © Jonathan William Duelks, 2021 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: An 11,000 year fire history of a coastal temperate rainforest in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia submitted by Jonathan William Duelks in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology Examining Committee: Andrew Martindale, Anthropology, UBC Supervisor Zhichun Jing, Anthropology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Camilla Speller, Anthropology, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract This thesis utilizes high resolution charcoal analysis and charcoal morphology to reconstruct fire history for Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), British Columbia between ~13,200 and 3500 cal BP. Home to the North Coast Tsimshian, PRH is an ideal study location for evaluating demographic and related environmental patterns for its extensive and well-studied archaeological record yet it lacks local paleoenvironmental data. I use this fire history to: produce one line of localized palaeoecological data, assess variation in charcoal accumulation rates (CHAR) compared against regional and semi-local paleoclimate records, determine whether or not the presence of an anthropogenic signal exists in the charcoal record, and test the relationship between natural charcoal accumulation rates and demographic models for the PRH region between 6000 and 3500 cal BP. Results indicate that fire frequency and intensity were low with just fourteen potential fire events in the DIL CHAR record, 9 in Zone 2 (13,200-6000 cal BP) and 4 in Zone 1 (6000-3500 cal BP). Zone 2 peaks could not be confidently separated from the background signal and are interpreted with caution. Peaks charcoal morphology in Zone 1 in suggest local, low intensity fires. The data suggests that no extreme fluctuation in climate as seen through fire regime occurred over the 11,000-year record, and while there is no correlation between demography and CHAR such that an anthropogenic driver could be posited, the only fire events confidently identified occurred after the earliest known villages formed. I suggest that additional fire histories capturing the past 3500 years when PRH saw significant demographic growth will be necessary and fruitful for understanding the human impact, if any, on the fire regime of the Prince Rupert Harbour region. iv Lay Summary This thesis utilizes high resolution charcoal analysis to reconstruct fire history for Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), British Columbia between ~13,200-3500 cal BP. The ~9000-year archaeological record as been studied extensively; however, we lack localized paleoenvironmental data to better understand human-environment interactions. This analysis finds that charcoal was present throughout the 11,000-year record in low quantities. Four fire events between 6000-3500 cal BP could be confidently distinguished from background noise. Low counts and few fire events indicate that PRH has not seen environmental change sever enough to alter the fire regime or rather, it has remained a cool and wet environment throughout the Holocene. No direct link could be made between the actions of humans and the occurrence of fire from 6000-3500 cal BP, but the presence of fires on the landscape as population began to increase at the end of the study period is intriguing and worthy of further study. v Preface This thesis is ultimately based on data collected by the Tsimshian History and Archaeology research project (SSHRC Grant #410-2011-0814). The original data source, lake sediment cores, were collected by Bryn Letham during the 2012-2015 field seasons for his PhD, Long-Term Human-Environment Interaction on Dynamic Coastal Landscapes: Examples From 15,000 Years of Shoreline and Settlement Change in the Prince Rupert Harbour Area. The data (diatoms) analyzed by Letham is distinctly different from the data (charcoal) analyzed here. The Sum Probability Distributions of radiocarbon date densities used here as a proxy for demography were calculated by Thomas J. Brown and originally published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November 2017. The authors on that paper are: Kevan Edinborough, Marko Porčić, Andrew Martindale, Thomas Jay Brown, Kisha Supernant, and Kenneth M. Ames. Figure three, ‘Summed probability distribution of terrestrial radiocarbon dates from Prince Rupert Harbour’ in this thesis was created by Thomas J. Brown. None of the text of this thesis is taken directly from the above-mentioned publications. The charcoal analysis presented here, and the text of this thesis are original, unpublished, intellectual product of the author, Jonathan William Duelks. vi Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ................................................................................................................................. iv Preface............................................................................................................................................. v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Modern and Paleoenvironmental Context .................................................................... 2 Late Glacial-3 13,500 cal BP – 11,500 cal BP .................................................................... 3 Early Post Glacial (EPG) 11,500 cal BP – 8,900 cal BP .................................................... 5 The Hypsithermal 8900 cal BP – 3800 cal BP .................................................................... 6 Paleoclimate Summary ........................................................................................................ 8 Modern Ecology of the Prince Rupert Harbour Sub-Zone ................................................. 9 Chapter 3: Archaeology ................................................................................................................. 9 Radiocarbon Dates ............................................................................................................ 11 Settlement and Demography ............................................................................................. 12 Artifacts/Technology ......................................................................................................... 16 Subsistence ........................................................................................................................ 18 Archaeology Summary ...................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 4: Reconstructing Fire History ....................................................................................... 21 Charcoal Morphology ....................................................................................................... 22 Identifying an Anthropogenic Signal ................................................................................ 25 Chapter 5: Data and Methods ...................................................................................................... 27 Core Samples..................................................................................................................... 27 Coring and Site Selection .................................................................................................. 29 Digby Island Lake and Philips Lagoon Cores ................................................................... 30 Age-Depth Model .............................................................................................................. 30 Core Sampling and Processing .......................................................................................... 31 Peak Analysis .................................................................................................................... 32 vii Charcoal Morphology Identification ................................................................................. 33 Sum Probability Distributions of Radiocarbon Dates ....................................................... 34 Statistical Methods ............................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 6: Charcoal Analysis and Results ................................................................................... 34 Sedimentation and Age Depth Model ..............................................................................