# What was the landcape of North America like before the Europeans arrived? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 4, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640 "2011-05-04T00:21:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bradjam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Bradjam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bradjam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/1 "2011-05-04T00:21:26Z")
When European explorers arrived in North America, did they simply walk into hundreds and hundreds of miles of wilderness? I’m thinking, basically, (from east coast to west coast) it went something like this: beach, woods, big river, more woods, plains, mountains, desert, beach…and maybe an Indian settlement here and there. If this is the case, that would basically make the whole United States east of say, Arkansas, nothing but wilderness? Mind boggling to think about. So what’s the straight dope? What was North America (focusing on the continental U.S.) like pre European exploration and settlement? ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/2 "2011-05-04T00:34:47Z")
What makes you think that the east coast wasn’t wilderness when the Europeans arrived? Other than the Native American “cities” that existed, such as they were, wilderness would have been pretty much everywhere in North America that hadn’t been settled by Europeans. Unless I misunderstand your question… ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/3 "2011-05-04T00:36:01Z")
This topic interests me. A quote that stuck with me, something I read in my childhood, went something like this: “At the time of discovery of America, a squirrel could walk from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river without ever touching the ground.” I can’t recall the source, and I’m sure the wording is a bit off, but the general idea is that the continent was completely forested on the eastern side. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/4 "2011-05-04T00:41:42Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > This topic interests me. A quote that stuck with me, something I read in my childhood, went something like this: > > “At the time of discovery of America, a squirrel could walk from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river without ever touching the ground.” > > I can’t recall the source, and I’m sure the wording is a bit off, but the general idea is that the continent was completely forested on the eastern side. is that possible given the salinity of the ocean? ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/5 "2011-05-04T00:56:44Z")
Yes, pretty much wilderness except where settled by Indians. You can get a sense of what it was like by reading one of the excellent biographies of Daniel Boone by John Mack Faragher or Robert Morgan. Boone opened the [Cumberland Gap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Gap), the passageway through the Appalachians where Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee meet, allowing exploration and settlement of the wilderness of western Kentucky and Tennessee. Boone made his living as a trapper, moving further west as the land became too settled and cleared of game for trapping. He ended up in Missouri, still on the western frontier. Boone’s life, 1734 - 1820, overlapped the founding of the United States, and he fought in the American Revolution. His life really illustrates the contrast between the civilized, educated world of the founding fathers and the complete wilderness that existed just outside the colonies. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/6 "2011-05-04T01:00:38Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > “At the time of discovery of America, a squirrel could walk from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river without ever touching the ground.” Quite false. > [@dolphinboy](#): > > Other than the Native American “cities” that existed, such as they were, wilderness would have been pretty much everywhere in North America that hadn’t been settled by Europeans. Unless I misunderstand your question… Not at all. Much of the east was dotted with indigenous agricultural settlements. At least in the lowlands suitable for agriculture, it was not anything like what we consider “wilderness.” Many settlements would have been within fairly easy walking distance. There often would have been more forest than under European patterns of settlement, but much of that would have been second growth, and would have been used for hunting by the nearby villages. In some areas the population was quite dense, as around [Cahokia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia), Illinois, where the population may have reached 40,000. In 1250 AD it may have been larger than contemporary London. Early European visitors to North America got a false impression that the area had been sparsely populated because they often arrived after European diseases had already spread through and killed off large portions of the original population. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/7 "2011-05-04T01:05:43Z")
It was forested… but it was a managed forest with lots of clearings. One early settler sent a started note that the forest was so clear he could ride his horse through it at a full gallop. The Native Americans routinely set fires to clear detritus and make it farm-able. And farm they did. They had settlements that could number in the thousands. Cahokia (Illinois) is estimated to have had 30-40,000 inhabitants. And Wahunsunacawh’s Chiefdom in Virginia appears to have had around 20,000 members on around 8,000 square miles including around 30 separate tribes. Generally they would move a village “periodically” clearing new fields as the old ones grew less productive. But for quite some time afterwords they would regularly burn the old fields to preserve their open nature. Evidently they were draws for game. I’ve got no idea what percentage of land remained actually forested and how much was cleared. But I think it is a mistake to consider it as a completely unbroken expanse of trees. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/8 "2011-05-04T01:10:43Z")
one usually can’t have a continuous stand of trees, unless it’s something like the amazon basin or similar. forests are regularly “trimmed” by typhoons and fires. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/9 "2011-05-04T03:07:22Z")
Most of North America just wasn’t rendered in real time back then. It was all a black-and-white grid, like an empty holodeck, unless somebody was looking at it. But there were audio renditions of falling trees once in a while, in case somebody was listening. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/10 "2011-05-04T03:14:14Z")
My timeline on this has never been good, but as **Bartman** alluded to at one point a generally large portion of the eastern United States was forested but not the sort of forest you might found around your house in the U.S. these days. These days pretty much any seriously forested area I’ve been to in the United States, there is an immense amount of under brush. Areas that are frequently used by hunters there are usually clear trails and such. During fall all the leaves and etc tend to make it a little easier to get around, but it’s definitely not easy going if you’re someone like me out in the true wilderness hunting. Hiking and game trails of course are a little better, especially “managed” hiking trails. Somewhere between the 1400s and the late 1700s the wilderness areas of eastern United States seem to have gone from the managed state the natives kept it in (in which there was forest but regularly cleared by large fires that kept them very navigable) to one more akin to the sort of wild growth you see in the eastern U.S. now if you go out into the wilderness. ---
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/11 "2011-05-04T03:31:50Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > This topic interests me. A quote that stuck with me, something I read in my childhood, went something like this: > > “At the time of discovery of America, a squirrel could walk from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river without ever touching the ground.” True! It was a nation of gay squirrels. Little-known fact. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/12 "2011-05-04T03:48:50Z")
In 1803, Ohio was almost 100% forest. By 1903, there were very few trees left in Ohio. Streams were polluted, the cities were dirty and smoggy, and the whitetail deer was more-or-less extinct. Today Ohio has lots of trees and 500,000 whitetail deer. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/13 "2011-05-04T04:12:40Z")
[The Pristine Myth](http://westinstenv.org/histwl/2008/06/07/the-pristine-myth-the-landscape-of-the-americas-in-1492/) > [@](#): > > Abstract. The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness, a world of barely perceptible human disturbance. There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wildlife disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settlements were ubiquitous. With Indian depopulation in the wake of Old World disease, the environment recovered in many areas. A good argument can be made that the human presence was less visible in 1750 than it was in 1492. > [@](#): > > The pristine view is to a large extent an invention of nineteenth-century romanticist and primitivist writers such as W.H. Hudson, Cooper, Thoreau, Longfellow, and Parkman, and painters such as Catlin and Church. The wilderness image has since become part of the American heritage, associated “with a heroic pioneer past in need of preservation” (Pyne 1982, Bowden 1992). > [@](#): > > The evidence is convincing. By 1492 Indian activity throughout the Americas had modified forest extent and composition, created and expanded grasslands, and rearranged microrelief via countless artificial earthworks. Agricultural fields were common, as were houses and towns and roads and trails. All of these had local impacts on soil, microclimate, hydrology, and wildlife. This is a large topic, for which this essay offers but an introduction to the issues, misconceptions, and residual problems. The evidence, pieced together from vague ethnohistorical accounts, field surveys, and archaeology, supports the hypothesis that the Indian landscape of 1492 had largely vanished by the mid-eighteenth century, not through a European superimposition, but because of the demise of the native population. The landscape of 1750 was more “pristine” (less humanized) than that of 1492. > [@](#): > > The roots of the pristine myth lie in part with early observers unaware of human impacts that may be obvious to scholars today, particularly for vegetation and wildlife. But even many earthworks such as raised fields have only recently been discovered (Denevan 1966; 1980). Equally important, most of our eyewitness descriptions of wilderness and empty lands come from a later time, particularly 1750-1850 when interior lands began to be explored and occupied by Europeans. By 1650, Indian populations in the hemisphere had been reduced by about 90 percent, while by 1750 European numbers were not yet substantial and settlement had only begun to expand. As a result, fields had been abandoned while settlements vanished, forests recovered, and savannas retreated. The landscape did appear to be a sparsely populated wilderness. This is the image conveyed by Parkman in the nineteenth century, Bakeless in 1950, and Shetler as recently as 1991. There was some-European impact, of course, but it was localized. After 1750 and especially after 1850, populations greatly expanded, resources were more intensively exploited, and European modification of the environment accelerated, continuing to the present. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/14 "2011-05-04T04:15:37Z")
the indians also generated ghost towns. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/15 "2011-05-04T04:22:58Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > the indians also generated ghost towns. What does this mean? ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/16 "2011-05-04T05:03:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > What does this mean? from your previous post. they abandoned existing systems when they retreated from the encroaching settlers. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/17 "2011-05-04T05:12:54Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > from your previous post. they abandoned existing systems when they retreated from the encroaching settlers. It was more because they died due to disease rather than that they retreated, and often did so before the arrival of the settlers themselves. Although Indians built some large structures like mounds, often their structures were ephemeral and the fact that the area had been previously populated would not even be recognized by settles. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/18 "2011-05-04T05:26:56Z")
yeah, that’s a question i wanted to ask (and not have to start a new thread.) has anyone ever studied a wooded portion of land and determine prior settlement/exploitation? i mean, without the need to dig for relics and there are no indications of prior heavy work such as mining, excavation and permanent structures? just the forest itself. read from somewhere that a pine / hardwood forest (atlantic side) can regenerate 80 years after a fire. could a nearby forest give you hint of pre-columbian human activity? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/19 "2011-05-04T05:42:35Z")
Imagine almost all the roads, and houses and lawns, and all the buildings, parking lots, athletic fields, and bridges, are covered with trees, brush, and grasses. It was kind of like that. There’s a lot more cleared land for farming now also, so imagine at least half of that as being all trees. And many of those trees were straighter and taller than they are now, and species like chestnut more prevalent. The rivers and streams ran wilder, with more oxbows and marshy shores. Animal life was more diverse, and predators more abundant. And there were a lot less people too. But there were also farms, villages, and roads. There were farmers, hunters, traders, and artisans too. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640/20 "2011-05-04T05:58:54Z")
Per the book [1491](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus%2Fdp%2F140004006X&rct=j&q=amazon%201491&ei=LunATYGSJ8nr0gHU9vC3Cg&usg=AFQjCNF_zm7CqncD1jMqg_YiGe3Zn-uqKQ&sig2=52CW4515jFUTbgKAw8EHYg&cad=rja), the landscape of both North and South America were heavily influenced, not to say landscaped, by the humans that lived there at the time. At core the claim (for north America) is that the locals grew crops around their villages, grasslands at a further remove to nurture buffalo etc, and beyond that grew trees as crops to produce must (chestnuts, acorns, etc) as needed. For south America the claim is that the locals influenced their environments just as much, but in different ways. The “Indians” as the Europeans encountered them were almost universally the outcome of decades of ravaging plagues (smallpox, measles, and so on) which preceded the advent of white people into any particular area. The paradigm of north American Indians as nomadic hunter-gatherers was an artefact of European arrival; before that north America east of the Rockies was mostly a continuum of agricultural societies. The thought that American humans were unique in not transforming their landscape to their needs was, at core, racist. As an example, the idea is that the Amazon as we know it now was to a fair extent a human construction (to produce fruit-bearing trees for human on-use) rather than a “natural” mix of species. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-landcape-of-north-america-like-before-the-europeans-arrived/580640.md?page=2)