Pre-European Settlement Era (pre-1630)

Natural climate variations and fires were the two largest influences on the extent, distribution, and composition of southern forests between the last ice age and European settlement.¹ During the peak of the most recent ice age or glacial period—about 18,000 to 20,000 years ago—the region north of present-day Atlanta was dominated by pine and spruce trees, much like Maine’s forests are today.² To the south, temperate deciduous species such as oaks were common. As the climate warmed after the end of this glacial period, forest composition changed. Eventually, mixed hardwoods and spruce became common in the region’s interior, fir and northern hardwoods in the higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains, and southern pines in the sandy uplands of the coastal plain.³

A common romantic portrayal is that the pre-European southern landscape was a pristine, relatively untouched forest wilderness. However, Native American communities were well established before European settlement, with an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people living in the forests of the southeastern portion of the region alone.⁴ Native Americans relied on southern forests for ecosystem services including food, fuel, and shelter. Most notably, native communities used fire to shape some of the forest to meet their needs. Many Native Americans in the region regularly set fires to clear brush and understory growth in order to facilitate travel, improve game habitat, and make it easier to hunt and grow food.⁵

These human-induced fires impacted southern forests in a number of ways. Where used, they suppressed new tree growth in the understory, creating an open, park-like forest. Burning created conditions favorable to selected pines, oaks, and other species that thrive under periodic low-intensity fire disturbances. Fires also created openings in the forest canopy and prevented natural forest succession. Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, for instance, was at one time a grass prairie due to annual burning by Native Americans.⁶ Likewise, a chronicler of Hernando De Soto’s expedition from 1539–1543 noted that, in what is today northern Florida, Native American fields of corn, beans, squash, and other vegetables “were spread out as far as the eye could see across two leagues [approximately 6 miles] of plain.”⁷

As a result of these climatic and human influences, the southern landscape was a diverse mosaic of expansive forests of different ages—interspersed with savannahs and swamps—by the time Europeans arrived.⁸ The landscape teemed with large herbivores such as white-tailed deer, elk, and bison—indicating the presence of forest openings made possible by Native American fires and natural disturbances. The forests included large carnivores such as bobcat, cougar, and red wolf, as well as many species of birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians.⁹

Circa 1630, potential forest cover in the South may have extended for more than 350 million acres¹⁰ and stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and beyond. By this time, canopy openings may have started to close as European diseases introduced by explorers began to take their toll on Native American communities.¹¹