ESPM 50AC Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Subsistence Agriculture, Acculturation, Capital Accumulation

• School: Berkeley
• Department: Environmental Science, Policy, And Management
• Course: ESPM 50AC
• Professor: Spreyer Kurt

Document Summary

Lecture 12 the north american fur trade - outline. Today: summary of the fur trade history, ecological / social & cult impact of the fur trade on native americans. The fur trade as an international phenomenon: hat mania: 16/17th century how western culture evolved and developed, emergent upper middle class: hats were the fashions craze that depleted the beaver population. Keystone species: connected to the entire ecosystem, ecosystem dependent on the beaver, structure, function, reproduction, transforms landscape, it is the ecosystem so without beavers it will collapse. Dams: block streams and how beaver ponds are crated, eat the bark that they used to build the lodges/dams. Dam then forest flooded then a lake to a pond that was then a seasonal wetland: a key habitat for plants, a hotspot for diversity, controls the flooding downstream. Indians understood all of this so they didn"t overdo when it came to hunting.