In America’s pristine myth, Charles C. Mann examines the myth of the "Noble Savage" and the "Pristine Wilderness":
Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she’ll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent’s few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed.
But in recent decades most archaeologists, anthropologists, and geographers have come to believe that this Edenic image isn’t true. When Columbus landed, the new research suggests, the Western Hemisphere wasn’t filled with scattered bands of ecologically pure hunters and gatherers.
Some folks disparage others for believing in the literal truth of the Bible — casting aspersion on those who believe in the "mythos" of said book. Perhaps those who see only evil in Western culture need to examine what "mythos" they hold to be infallible.
Continuing on…
Although Indian engineering led to some disasters, for the most part its impact on the environment was, as Mr. Denevan notes, "subtle, transformative, and persistent." The forests were burned and the land was farmed, but the soil was left largely intact, or even improved; despite their large numbers, there is little evidence that native Americans often exhausted or polluted water supplies, or overran their resource base.
But is this a marvel of Native American planning or just a matter of not yet overdeveloping their resource base? Ah well, at least some mythos remain intact.
All in all an excellent read that I highly recommend.