Part of a series of articles titled Intermountain Park Science: Drought in the Southwest.
Article
Drought, Fire, and Archeology in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico
- Anastasia Steffen, Archeologist, Valles Caldera National Preserve, National Park Service and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
- Jamie A. Civitello, Integrated Resources Program Manager, Bandelier National Monument, National Park Service
- Rachel A. Loehman, Research Landscape Ecologist, U.S. Geological Survey
- Robert R. Parmenter, Chief, Science & Resource Stewardship, Valles Caldera National Preserve, National Park Service
In Recognition of Dr. Ana Steffen
Dr. Ana Steffen spent much of her career expanding the knowledge of human history in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico through her ground-breaking and visionary work on millennial-scale human-environment interactions, obsidian archeology and geochemical sourcing, and contemporary archeological fire effects. In her long career as a researcher and resource steward, Dr. Steffen inspired innumerable scientists, land managers, students, and members of the public, and brought global attention to unique archeological perspectives on contemporary climate change issues. Within her home landscape of northern New Mexico, Dr. Steffen helped to define and shape the rapidly growing discipline of fire archeology, including foundational work on wildfire impacts to chronometric dating of obsidian and to the integrity of the archeo-ecological record of humans and their environments. Dr. Steffen’s legacy of archeological research in the Jemez Mountains, coupled with her world-class obsidian research, stands as a model for what resource managers can do to protect and preserve our unique and non-renewable past.
Dr. Steffen worked for the Valles Caldera National Preserve since its establishment in 2000 (first as an employee of the USDA Forest Service, then for the Valles Caldera Trust and the National Park Service). She served in many capacities over her career, including archeologist, cultural resources program manager, and interdisciplinary scientist/communicator. During her distinguished career, Dr. Steffen developed and managed the preserve’s large-scale archeological inventory and collections program, helped to establish and guide the long-running ArcBurn fire effects project, published and presented widely on archeological fire effects and obsidian archeology and geochemical sourcing, and was a recognized global expert on climate impacts to the archeological record. For decades, Dr. Steffen served as an advisor, mentor, and teacher across disciplines and agencies; she was a gifted and captivating storyteller who enthusiastically shared her vast knowledge in a way that was understandable to and exciting for her audiences and ignited a passion to learn more. Dr. Steffen passed away on February 16, 2024. She leaves us with a rich and inspired scientific legacy, a commitment to continue to push boundaries, and an enduring love and admiration for a truly spectacular person.
Abstract
In the Jemez Mountains, drought is one key variable causing forest fires that result in a wide range of effects to archeological sites, historic structures, cultural landscapes, and traditional cultural places. We discuss impacts to archeological resources seen at Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico over the past forty years, including information, insights, and guidelines developed from the ArcBurn project, an interdisciplinary effort to quantify archeological fire effects and the fuels and fire environments that cause them. Our lessons learned can assist other parks in protecting the qualities that matter in these irreplaceable resources.
Cultural Resources and Fire
Like many areas across the Southwest, the Jemez Mountains in north-central New Mexico can be characterized as a rich cultural landscape representing all time periods of human occupation in North America. In addition to abundant archeological resources, numerous traditional cultural places (areas with high cultural significance or important resources) are also a part of Indigenous peoples' living traditions and cultural practices. Many “natural resources” are a part of the “cultural resources” realm, as well. Climate and fire induced changes to the biological elements of landscapes, the traditional use of fire by Indigenous peoples to promote valued conditions and resources, and the important role of Tribal Consultation to assess and prioritize treatment areas and mitigation are critical elements of cultural resources management within fire-prone and fire-adapted landscapes (Lake et al. 2017). Most archeological resources are considered irreplaceable and non-renewable. All of these valued resources are vulnerable to wildland fire to some degree. Acting over many decades, forest management practices and the effects of a changing climate are creating fire conditions that threaten tens of thousands of irreplaceable resources to an unprecedented degree. Past and ongoing research seeks to understand fire effects to archeological resources so that we can proactively and concomitantly manage fuels, fire, and cultural and natural resources with shared goals of mitigating threats and decreasing the vulnerability of all resources to impacts from climate changes and uncharacteristic fire. In the case of cultural resources, fuel reduction treatments and prescribed fire can be used to reduce the risk of severe wildfires and the potential adverse impacts of fire on resources (Figure 1). The focus of this paper is on fire effects and mitigation efforts related to the preservation and protection of the material archaeological record.
U.S. Geological Survey/Rachel A. Loehman
Fire Regimes and Drought in the Jemez Mountains
The Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico have experienced substantial and rapid climate changes and associated effects (Carlson and Gross 2019, USGCRP 2017, Albright et al. 2022). As in much of the southwestern U.S., this is expressed most notably by the occurrence of large, uncharacteristically severe fires (for a recent review of climate-fire relationships, see Mueller et al. 2020). Precipitation has long been a key driver of fire regimes across southwestern forest ecosystems, including the forests of Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve (Swetnam and Baisan 1996). Prior to the influence of 19th and 20th century land management practices (discussed below), local fire patterns were characterized by low severity surface fires that burned frequently in mid-elevation Ponderosa pine forests and less frequent, more severe fires in higher elevation mixed conifer forests (Touchan et al. 1996, Swetnam et al. 2016), often with large fires linked to the occurrence of drought. However, into the 20th century fire suppression policies, along with intense livestock grazing that depleted fine fuels, led to the near cessation of surface fire in fire-prone forests and the ongoing buildup of surface and canopy fuels. By the latter half of the 20th century, many of the fires that occurred in the Jemez Mountains included larger areas of high-severity fire than occurred in the past, catalyzing changes in forest distribution, composition, and structure (Hagmann et al. 2021; see Fire in the Jemez Mountains for more details).
While land management practices play a large role in increased fire threats, prolonged periods of warming caused by anthropogenic climate change are amplifying the effect of low precipitation (drought) years on fire intensity and size. Across the southwestern U.S., long-term weather data show upward trends in temperatures and downward trends in precipitation (Mueller et al. 2020). Recent assessments of climate change and drought at Bandelier National Monument (Carlson and Gross 2019) and at Valles Caldera National Preserve (Albright et al. 2022) indicate that both parks have already experienced significant human-caused climate warming super-imposed on natural long-term precipitation cycles. Weather stations in and around both parks (see https://wrcc.dri.edu/vallescaldera/) provide high-resolution data that describe local expressions of regional and global trends in temperature and precipitation. In the town of Jemez Springs at 6,000 feet above mean sea level, where the Valles Caldera National Preserve headquarters offices are located, instrumental weather data from 1914-2021 show a steady atmospheric warming trend (1.8ºF per century) in mean annual temperature (Figure 2). This increase is influenced by spring and summer warming (Figure 2, showing June) with fall-winter temperatures remaining more stable (Figure 2, showing November). Precipitation in the Jemez Mountains (Figure 3) is part of a regional precipitation cycle documented through tree-ring studies (e.g., mean 52 years in Milne et al. 2003), that is influenced by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), in which a cycle of 25-30 years of above-average precipitation is followed by 25-30 years of below-average precipitation levels.
Climate data from Daily Summaries from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Station ID: GHCND:USC00294369 https://www.climate.gov/
Climate data from Daily Summaries from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Station ID: GHCND:USC00294369 https://www.climate.gov/
Fire patterns and impacts are linked to climate. Warmer air temperatures result in higher evapotranspiration rates and increasing drought stress in trees, even without a downward trend in precipitation in the past few decades at either Bandelier National Monument or Valles Caldera National Preserve. Of great concern is a lowering of vapor pressure deficit, an integrative measure of both temperature and air moisture indicative of potential water loss from vegetation that has been shown to be highly correlated with both regional burned area and higher fire severity (Mueller et al. 2020). The timing, seasonality, and amount of precipitation also influences fire activity: seasonal droughts, low winter snowpack, and earlier spring runoff can lengthen the fire season and increase landscape flammability. High fire danger days, represented by threshold values of Energy Release Component (ERC), are projected to increase in number, especially in spring and fall, lengthening the climatic fire season (Riley and Loehman 2016). Finally, more frequent occurrence of high-intensity storm events is increasing the potential for post-fire runoff, erosion, and flooding (Albright et al. 2022, USGRCP 2017).
Fire Effects to Archeology: Jemez Mountains Case Study
In the context of these climate trends and the cumulative human alteration of forests, fuels, and fire regimes, several “big fires” (>10,000 acres) over the last four decades in the eastern and central Jemez Mountains have swept across large swaths of forest and burned with greater severity across larger extents than fires that occurred in the past (see selective list below). Archeological resources in these burns were likely exposed to higher temperatures (energy from combustion) and longer fire residence time than during fires before this era (Swetnam et al. 2016). During this time, dramatic and unexpected effects to archeological resources began to be reported, and each of these fires provided extraordinary opportunities for analyzing fire impacts (see this webpage, Wildfire and Archeology in the Jemez Mountains, for more details). These studies were carried out by land managers and scientists in parallel with research conducted in the maturing fields of landscape and fire ecology, fire history, a variety of biological sciences, geomorphology, soil science, and hydrology. The resulting firestorm of research beginning in the 1970s (see below) benefited tremendously from local work produced by Jemez Mountains scientists in the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.Overview of Direct and Indirect Effects to the Material Record at Archeological Sites
Fire effects to archeological resources (sites and artifacts) can be direct (caused by combustion and heat exposure during a fire) or indirect (the result of secondary processes that occur after a fire; see Ryan et al. 2012:11-12). Direct effects to architectural sites such as pueblos and small residential structures include fracturing and discoloration of masonry (architectural stone) and destabilized walls (Figure 4). Direct fire effects to artifacts include fracturing, discoloration, or changes in decorative elements of ancient pottery (ceramic sherds), such that the style, time period, and in some cases function of these artifacts becomes unidentifiable, and cracking or fracturing of stone artifacts (lithics), in a way that can obscure the material source or the artifact’s function. For obsidian, a volcanic glass commonly used for tool making in the Jemez Mountains, shattering or bubbling of the glass can destroy the artifact shape (Figures 5 and 6). In addition, fire fracture produces non-cultural objects that mimic obsidian artifacts and confound analyses at quarry sites, because they are easily mistaken by archeologists who have not been specifically trained to recognize this fire effect. Fire can also damage obsidian artifacts by interfering with obsidian hydration dating potential. This chronometric technique is based on measurements of microscopic depths of hydration bands in obsidian that slowly form over centuries or millennia, as water is adsorbed into the silica structure of the geological glass: exposure to the heat of a fire can alter or reset this obsidian hydration “clock.”
NPS
NPS/A. Steffen
NPS/A. Steffen
Indirect effects can occur days, months, or years after a fire, and can be localized or occur at a landscape scale. Many architectural sites exhibit significant pedestaling and displacement as post-fire erosion rates are high in and around features after vegetation is consumed. Architecture and other site features can also be disturbed or displaced by soil movement resulting from fire-killed tree fall. Other important post-fire effects include erosion and flooding common after high-severity wildfires, which may result in devastating damage to the archeological record occurring when the soil matrix that composes subsurface archeological sites washes away. Post-fire sheet washing can remove artifacts from their context within cultural deposits, disassociate artifacts from other materials deposited prehistorically (such as charcoals, pollen, seeds and plant fragments), and displace and transport artifacts, causing them to be redeposited into jumbled contexts. Post-fire erosion also can include gullying and trenching that cut into or eradicate deeply buried and previously stable archeological deposits (Figure 7).
NPS/A. Steffen
The ArcBurn Project: Understanding Direct Fire Effects to the Material Record
The widespread and extreme fire effects observed at archeological sites within the Las Conchas fire and other recent fires in the Jemez Mountains prompted the initiation of the ArcBurn project, a multi-agency, interdisciplinary effort to identify the fuels and fire environments associated with direct and indirect fire impacts to archeological sites and artifacts, with the goal of informing forest and fuels treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed fire) and planning related to preservation of cultural resources. ArcBurn was funded in 2012 by the Joint Fire Science Program, a fire science research and management initiative jointly supported by the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service, and included investigators from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service representing the fields of fire science, forest ecology, earth science, archeology, and fire management (Loehman et al. 2016).To quantify the fire intensity and exposure that results in direct fire effects, the ArcBurn team exposed a suite of artifact and material types, including ceramics, obsidian, chert, and masonry–archeological materials common across the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico–to fire environments that simulated crown fires, surface fires, or smoldering ground fires, and the heating durations and temperatures typical of those environments (Figures 8 and 9). The ArcBurn team designed replicated combustion experiments using fuels and fuel beds representative of the fuel types and arrangements local to the southwestern U.S. Fire experiments were conducted in controlled combustion environments at the U.S. Forest Service’s Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory in Montana. Multiple “exposure doses” (specific combinations of energy intensity and duration occurring during different kinds of fire) were developed for each fire environment based on combinations of duration and temperature (crown fire simulations), fuel load and below-fuel surface moisture (surface fire simulations), or fuelbed depth and sub-surface moisture (ground fire simulations). The various levels of heat output (energy) produced by these doses and transferred to artifacts were measured using thermocouples (sensors that measure precise temperatures at fine time increments) attached to artifact samples. All samples used in these experiments were unprovenienced artifacts available for research purposes or non-archaeological materials.Following the experiments, archeologists examined each specimen to characterize fire effects across the four artifact types (ceramics, obsidian, chert, and masonry) in each of the three fire environments (crown, surface, or ground fire). The team developed a comprehensive list of potential fire effects for each artifact type, and metrics to determine whether individual effects resulted in a substantial adverse outcome, or loss of information. The project also modeled the impacts of environmental, vegetation and fuels-related, and climatic variables on observed archeological fire effects in the Jemez Mountains over the past several decades, finding that the severity of fire effects was linked to topography and its relationship to fuel moisture (and therefore, energy of combustion; Friggens et al. 2021). Here, we provide highlights of the experimental results, but for additional details readers are encouraged to explore the project report (Loehman et al. 2016, link to full report).
ArcBurn/R. R. Kneifel
ArcBurn/R. R. Kneifel
Many different archeological fire effects are possible (see Appendix 1 in Loehman et al. 2016) but not all effects are permanent or alter artifacts or sites in a way that compromises their interpretation or conveyance of information about the past (e.g., how peoples lived, when they lived, and/or how they behaved or interacted with landscapes and resources). While a wide variety of considerations can contribute to the meaning and value of artifacts, ArcBurn targeted characteristics that render them significant for archeological preservation as mandated by federal regulations. A novel contribution of the ArcBurn project is the explicit consideration of what constitutes meaningful (“substantial”) fire alteration in this context. For example, sooting is a common but usually temporary fire effect that may not obscure an artifact’s history; in contrast, fire fracture or breakage can render an artifact unidentifiable, undatable, or no longer attributable to a cultural group. Other examples of substantial alteration include sherd color change sufficient to interfere with identification, fracturing of obsidian nodules leading to misidentification of resulting fragments, and masonry sufficiently cracked to undermine the stability of a wall. The project’s assessment of relevance or non-relevance for individual fire effects provides a stronger basis for prioritizing preservation measures and treatment actions.
Fire effects occurred in most fire environments but not all effects were assessed as substantial, and artifact types responded uniquely to simulated fire environments. For ceramics, the widest range of substantial alterations were produced in surface fire experiments, as the result of direct flame contact; these included color change, residue deposits, cracking, and melting. Ground fire experiments produced only color change and residue deposits, and crown fire experiments resulted in only color change (e.g., darkening on the sherd surfaces), some instances of which were assessed to be substantial. For chert, the most common fire effects observed were residue deposits and color changes (surface and ground fire environments) and fracturing (crown fire experiments). For masonry, residue deposits and color changes were the most prevalent fire effect, occurring in most crown fire experiments and all surface and ground fire experiments. Cracking was mainly associated with high temperature and long duration crown fire (900 degrees C for 90 seconds). This is at the high end of crown fire “dose” in real-world fire environments but is an exposure of a type that can also occur outside of crown fires; for example, heavy downed fuels ("jackpots") will produce a similar fire "dose" and can result in similar substantial effects. These results accord with field observations at Bandelier National Monument, where fire-caused cracking in masonry can compromise the stability and persistence of standing walls and architectural features. For obsidian, observed substantial effects included fire fracture and loss of obsidian hydration dating potential. Fire fracture of obsidian nodules (i.e., the artifact cores and non-artifact geological materials common at obsidian quarries) occurred both under radiant heating doses typical of high-temperature crown fires (or under jackpots, as described above for masonry) and in open flame environments (where obsidian was exposed to contact with direct flames). Fire fracture was more common in the larger nodule sizes (Figure 9), while obsidian flake artifacts did not experience fire fracture in high percentages–probably because their thin profile and lack of chunky mass resulted in lesser thermal stress. Fire-caused loss of obsidian hydration dating potential was experimentally tested for ground fire (smoldering) environments; loss of dating potential occurred in 82-100% of the flake artifacts tested. This profound degree of information loss may be due to the long residence time associated with the smoldering fire environment (Steffen 2005), highlighting potential risks of high fuel loading (whether jackpots, well-dispersed heavy fuels, or deep beds of light fuels) on archeological sites.
Drought, Fire, and Archeological Fire Effects: What’s Next?
Land managers throughout the Jemez Mountains are designing and implementing forest treatments to reduce adverse fire effects across a range of resources, restore fire to fire-excluded landscapes, and manage fuels to minimize risks of severe fire. At Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve, ArcBurn results, coupled with field observations of fire effects, inform ongoing fuel treatments and preservation strategies implemented on archeological sites. Information from the ArcBurn project and lessons learned from the large, recent fires that have burned in the Jemez Mountains can be used by archeologists and fire management programs elsewhere (see Loehman et al. 2016 for detailed information on fire environments and associated archeological fire effects, and guidelines for fuels treatments and prescribed fire on archeological sites). Some treatment guidelines developed for archeological sites at Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve include:
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Use forest thinning treatments to reduce standing fuel biomass and density accumulated during the 19th and 20th century periods of fire exclusion. Uncharacteristically high fuel loads increase the potential for exposure of artifacts, sites, and other cultural materials to high temperature and long duration fire environments associated with substantial fire effects. Thinning treatments can be implemented at landscape or stand scales, or on a site-by-site basis to remove fuels from around sensitive resources.
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Design thinning and prescribed fire treatments to avoid creating the fire environments shown in laboratory and prescribed fire experiments to be damaging to archaeological materials (ceramic, obsidian, and masonry artifacts) and sites. These environments include crown and surface fires (flaming combustion) and ground fires (smoldering combustion). Mechanical fuels treatments should avoid creating fuel "jackpots" (areas of concentrated fuels), dispersing heavy fuels (such as logs or portions of logs) across site surfaces, or depositing dense beds of shredded fuels (masticated fuels) atop archeological sites or artifacts.
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For archeological landscapes where sites with masonry features are the most frequent site types, as are found at Bandelier National Monument (and across the Jemez Mountains at lower elevations), fuels can be removed from near masonry features and placed in piles outside of site boundaries for burning under prescribed conditions, or can be scattered in low density within adjacent areas to avoid fire environments that lead to cracking of structural building materials (masonry) and subsequent wall destabilization.
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For archeological landscapes characterized by sites without masonry features, as exemplified in the higher elevations of Valles Caldera National Preserve, archeologists can develop fuels treatments specific to the predominate artifact classes present, to minimize adverse impacts to fire-sensitive artifact types. The large size and diffuse boundaries of many artifact scatter sites pose challenges for moving fuels outside of site boundaries, but particularly for obsidian scatter sites–an important site type at Valles Caldera National Preserve–it is important that dense fuel piles are not created within site boundaries to preserve obsidian hydration dating potential and minimize fire fracture.
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Develop fuels treatments specific to the predominate artifact classes present to identify potential damaging fire environments and minimize adverse impacts to fire-sensitive artifact types. Fire effects vary by artifact types and fire environment; for example, for ceramic artifacts minimal fire effects occur with prescribed burning in light fuels, although smoldering ground fires have resulted in adverse impacts such as color change and residue deposits (Loehman et al. 2016). In contrast, smoldering ground fires have little effect on obsidian artifacts, but surface fire environments are associated with fire fracture.
Most prehistoric sites in the Jemez Mountains have been exposed to fires repeatedly through time. Fire is an important site formation process, with a dual role: intentional fire use by Indigenous peoples can shape cultural sites and landscapes, and wildfires–past and present–can modify the archaeological record in a manner that affects inferences about past human behaviors (Romagnoli et al. 2018). However, recent fires in the eastern and central Jemez Mountains of New Mexico are uncharacteristic in their high severity extent and the frequency of high severity wildfires, as compared with the millennial-scale history of fire in these landscapes. Thus, future fires are likely to occur in areas already burned at high severity (although they are likely to burn in vegetation types different from those that were present historically or in earlier fires). It will be important to understand the cumulative effects of these “reburns” on the physical characteristics and integrity of ceramics, obsidian, chert, and masonry artifacts, and on archaeological sites as a whole. The ArcBurn project did not address the question of how artifacts fare when subjected to multiple exposure doses resulting from reburn environments–and this is an important direction for future research.
Uncharacteristically severe fires remain an ongoing threat to archeological resources and cultural landscapes. Continuing regional drought and resulting high levels of tree mortality, shifts in vegetation community composition, and fuel aridity–along with accumulations of surface and canopy fuels–increase the probability of more severe fire in the form of crown fires or long residence time surface and ground fires. These novel fuelscapes and resulting fire effects are likely unprecedented across the period of pre-European human occupation of the Jemez Mountains (Roos et al. 2020, Swetnam et al. 2016).
Improving and expanding preservation strategies at archeological sites in fire prone landscapes presents numerous methodological and operational challenges. The ArcBurn project identified several major arenas of research–ideally conducted in practitioner-researcher partnerships–to address these challenges. These include continued characterization of the range of fire effects present across a diversity of artifacts and archaeological site types, identification of the fuels and fire environments that cause these effects, and development of operational tools (e.g., prediction models, vulnerability assessment tools, treatment guidelines) to aid managers in development of fuels treatments and characterization of risk. Archaeologists’ perspectives and assessments are a necessary and critical input to design of fuel treatments for archaeological preservation; for example, in adjusting fuel treatments and fire management options based on the specific tolerances or sensitivities of the most common or most information-rich artifacts. Because diverse artifacts are often clustered together within sites, treatment decisions may need to be made on a site-by-site basis to address the most sensitive type(s) of artifact in archeological assemblages, but at landscape scales, forest treatment preservation decisions can emphasize the most frequent kinds of sites or artifacts present across large areas or apply more refined or finer-scale strategies that target protection of specific archeological resources that are more rare, more sensitive, or with higher information potential or cultural value. Design and implementation of fuel treatments with benefits across both cultural and natural resources domains is a critical step in mitigating threats and decreasing the vulnerability of all resources to impacts from climate changes and uncharacteristic fire.
Acknowledgements
The authors respectfully acknowledge the importance of the lands within Valles Caldera National Preserve, Bandelier National Monument, and the entire Jemez Mountains, for numerous Indigenous peoples in the greater Southwest region. We recognize that Indigenous people have stewarded this land for many generations and that these connections continue today. We gratefully acknowledge the other members of the ArcBurn team for their contributions to this project: Connie Constan, Jennifer Dyer, Rebekah Kneifel, Jim Reardon, Megan Friggens, and Rebecca Baisden (U.S. Forest Service); Madeline Scheintaub (National Park Service/Bureau of Land Management); and Zander Evans (The Forest Stewards Guild). The ArcBurn project was funded by the Joint Fire Science Program (project JFSP 12-1-04-5, Linking field-based and experimental methods to quantify, predict, and manage fire effects on cultural resources, “ArcBurn”) and the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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Last updated: December 20, 2024