POLLEN INDICATORS OF LATE HOLOCENE NATIVE AMERICAN VEGETATION IMPACTS IN THE FINGER LAKES REGION OF NEW YORK STATE, USA

Historically, the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York was the homeland for three of the five tribal groups comprising the Iroquois Confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga), and the region possesses a high density of archaeological sites associated with Late Woodland (ca. 950 – 1600 A.D.) and Contact Era (1600 – 1800 A.D.) Iroquoian horticultural groups. Pollen extracted from the sediments of Heath-Markham Pond, a small glacial kettle basin located in the northwestern portion of the Finger Lakes region, have provided a high-resolution record of local vegetation change corresponding to periods of known Native American settlement and swidden horticulture. Five Contact-era Seneca village sites have been excavated within a 5-km radius of the pond, including the Lima Site (occupied 1620 – 1640 A.D.), Powerhouse (1640 – 1655 A.D.), Dann (1655 – 1673 A.D.), Kirkwood (1675 – 1687 A.D.), and Totiakton/Rochester Junction (1675 – 1687 A.D.). Vegetation changes associated with Iroquoian forest clearance and horticultural activity include decreased abundance of late-successional Fagus (beech) and Acer (maple); an increase in early- and mid-successional Populus (aspen), Fraxinus (ash), Pinus (pine), and Quercus (oak); higher frequencies of hard mast taxa including Juglans (walnut/butternut), Carya (hickory), and Castanea (chestnut); increased abundance of ruderal herbaceous taxa such as Ambrosia and Poaceae; and presence of Zea mays (maize) pollen. The vegetation changes identified in the Heath-Markham pollen profile are similar to those from pollen spectra from lacustrine sites associated with prehistoric Iroquoian horticulture in northern New York State and southern Ontario, Canada. Iroquoian horticultural populations of the Finger Lakes region transformed late-successional Fagus-Acer forests into a mosaic of cleared agricultural land, early- and mid-successional forests, open woodlands, and nut groves through a variety of landscape management practices including forest clearance, burning, and agroforestry. Long-term trends in pollen taxa abundance in the Heath-Markham pollen record suggest possible Native American vegetation disturbance extending back to at least 2000 cal. yr B.P., roughly coinciding with the earliest appearance of maize in the regional archaeological record.