1 00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:07,360 Speaker 1: The famous geographic dictum space plus culture equals place is 2 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:10,479 Speaker 1: nowhere more vivid than on the high plains of the West, 3 00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:15,320 Speaker 1: where a succession of human cultures have repeatedly inhabited a 4 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:21,360 Speaker 1: setting already changed by previous inhabitants. I'm dan Flor's and 5 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:45,000 Speaker 1: this is the American West, thinking about big history in 6 00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:52,280 Speaker 1: one Western place. On a blessery gray day in March 7 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:56,160 Speaker 1: twenty years ago, Stephen Ranella and I spent an afternoon 8 00:00:56,200 --> 00:00:58,720 Speaker 1: giving ourselves a tour of a piece of the West 9 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:02,160 Speaker 1: that ought to be as famous as Jamestown or Plymouth Rock. 10 00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:06,600 Speaker 1: Stephen was then working on his book on Buffalo, and 11 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:09,400 Speaker 1: on a visit to Santa Fe, where I'd recently built 12 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:12,280 Speaker 1: a house, he proposed that we'd take off across the 13 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:15,520 Speaker 1: Great Plains to see what then stood as a kind 14 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:19,560 Speaker 1: of ground zero in the American story. The place we 15 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:23,679 Speaker 1: were heading entirely lacked the school book associations of a 16 00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:29,080 Speaker 1: colonial Virginia or Massachusetts Bay, or even of Santa Fe, 17 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,840 Speaker 1: then closing in on its four hundredth year as the 18 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:37,520 Speaker 1: oldest city founded by Europeans in the American West. But 19 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,920 Speaker 1: the place we were driving towards did have one great 20 00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:45,680 Speaker 1: advantage not enjoyed by those more famous sites. The Blackwater 21 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:51,520 Speaker 1: draw UNESCO World Heritage Site outside Clovis, New Mexico, pushes 22 00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:56,440 Speaker 1: definite human inhabitation of North America back more than thirteen 23 00:01:56,560 --> 00:02:01,240 Speaker 1: thousand years in the past in twenty twenty six. There 24 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,960 Speaker 1: are pretty definitive arguments for a human presence in America 25 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:09,240 Speaker 1: even older. Of course, the best evidence so far is 26 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:13,160 Speaker 1: the blockbuster find in twenty nineteen of what turned out 27 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:18,160 Speaker 1: to be sixty one beautifully preserved footprints, mostly left by 28 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:22,800 Speaker 1: children or adolescents, in the soft mud of an ancient lake, 29 00:02:22,919 --> 00:02:26,320 Speaker 1: a couple of one hundred miles southwest of the Blackwater 30 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:32,400 Speaker 1: Clovis site in today's White Sands National Monument. Grass remains 31 00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: crushed by those feet have dated to twenty three thousand 32 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:41,760 Speaker 1: years ago, a full ten millennia before Clovis. But so far, 33 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,760 Speaker 1: no ancient culture whose remains archaeologists have on Earth seems 34 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,559 Speaker 1: to have draped itself over this continent with the geographic 35 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:56,120 Speaker 1: sweep of the Clovis Paleolithic hunters, whose excavated campsites and 36 00:02:56,160 --> 00:03:01,200 Speaker 1: tools cover every part of the present United States. For 37 00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:04,280 Speaker 1: most of America, and this is certainly true of most 38 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:09,200 Speaker 1: of the American West, places like White Sands excepted. Clovis 39 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:13,120 Speaker 1: is the beginning of the human presence here, our human 40 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:17,919 Speaker 1: ground zero. Before Clovis, most pieces of the West truly 41 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:24,160 Speaker 1: were wilderness landscapes that lacked a human presence. After Clovis, 42 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:28,560 Speaker 1: the pattern in most places is one occupation after another 43 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:34,639 Speaker 1: right down through today. In search of Clovis America, Stephen 44 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:38,160 Speaker 1: and I were out in a country I'd once made home. 45 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:41,760 Speaker 1: We call it the High Plains today, although who knows 46 00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:44,760 Speaker 1: what names most of its ancient inhabitants might have used 47 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:48,600 Speaker 1: for these flat prairies. The names we do know seem 48 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:54,200 Speaker 1: to reference the region's endless horizontal flatness, a sensory impression 49 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:59,440 Speaker 1: that perhaps was universal for us upright primates. Steven and 50 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:02,960 Speaker 1: I were headed for a very old set piece here 51 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:07,520 Speaker 1: less than a century ago when archaeologists discovered the spot. 52 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,560 Speaker 1: Clovis culture was unknown and Blackwater draw was about to 53 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:16,560 Speaker 1: be mined for gravel to pill roads through a handful 54 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:22,160 Speaker 1: of nearby American farming towns. When archaeologist E. B. Howard 55 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,279 Speaker 1: made discoveries here that rocked the world. Scientists named the culture, 56 00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:30,720 Speaker 1: whose large dramatic points they were finding after the closest 57 00:04:30,880 --> 00:04:35,240 Speaker 1: of those towns, Clovis, New Mexico. With the addition of 58 00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:39,960 Speaker 1: a grand new tool, radiocarbon dating, over the next half century, 59 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:43,360 Speaker 1: science would find evidence all over the West and all 60 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:47,960 Speaker 1: over America of a Clovisia the beautiful that had lasted 61 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:52,919 Speaker 1: four hundred years, significantly longer than the two hundred and 62 00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: fifty years of the present United States. Stephen and I 63 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,000 Speaker 1: had made one cardinal mistake in our over to the 64 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:04,800 Speaker 1: Texas border from Santa Fe. We'd forgotten to check if 65 00:05:04,839 --> 00:05:09,159 Speaker 1: the Blackwater draw Grounds and its visitor center were actually open. 66 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,680 Speaker 1: For some reason now lost to time. It turned out 67 00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:15,839 Speaker 1: the site was in fact closed for the day, which 68 00:05:15,839 --> 00:05:19,960 Speaker 1: I'll confessed didn't really deter us. Interested in information and 69 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:23,559 Speaker 1: education rather than mischief, we simply climbed over the gate 70 00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:27,679 Speaker 1: and proceeded to give ourselves a self guided tour around 71 00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:32,599 Speaker 1: one of our country's most famous ancient human sites. That 72 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:35,320 Speaker 1: tour made it clear that the Clovis people had arrived 73 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:40,080 Speaker 1: in America at a propitious time. Among the large cosmic 74 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,520 Speaker 1: forces that have shaped North America's big history, one of 75 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:46,920 Speaker 1: them had allowed these people their access to the continent 76 00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:51,359 Speaker 1: hemmed up for thousands of years on the Baringian land 77 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:55,279 Speaker 1: mass that formed between Siberia and Alaska, when much of 78 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:59,160 Speaker 1: the northern Ocean waters were ice. The ancestors of these 79 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:03,880 Speaker 1: people had been blocked from entering America i Tinrant. Earlier 80 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:07,760 Speaker 1: groups like those who found White Sands had probably followed 81 00:06:07,760 --> 00:06:11,920 Speaker 1: the coastlines from Asia to America in some kind of watercraft, 82 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:16,720 Speaker 1: but sixteen thousand or so years ago, the Wisconsin Maximum 83 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:20,360 Speaker 1: had ebbed enough to open a passage out of Beringia 84 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:24,159 Speaker 1: and into North America. As best we can tell, by 85 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:28,040 Speaker 1: thirteen thousand years ago, the early Americans we now call 86 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:31,680 Speaker 1: Clovis were all the way down to Blackwater in today's 87 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:35,839 Speaker 1: New Mexico. The Clovis people were lucky enough to be 88 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:40,039 Speaker 1: here when giants still roamed the continent. Indeed, it was 89 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:43,480 Speaker 1: the Pleistocene megafauna of the Americas that drew humans out 90 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:47,039 Speaker 1: of Siberia in the first place. Across most of the 91 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:50,839 Speaker 1: American West thirteen thousand years ago, it was possible for 92 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:54,560 Speaker 1: Clovis people to do what so many humans loved to do, 93 00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,279 Speaker 1: specialize economically, and what they appeared to have wanted to 94 00:06:59,320 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: specialize in was hunting big animals, especially elephants, the various 95 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:09,039 Speaker 1: species of mammoths that had evolved in America when they could. 96 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:14,520 Speaker 1: It was the discovery of large Clovis spear points embedded 97 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:19,080 Speaker 1: in the remains of mammoths, giant groundsloss, camels, and horses 98 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:23,040 Speaker 1: that rocked the world in the nineteen thirties. It confirmed 99 00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:27,680 Speaker 1: something the famed fulsome Side found fewer than ten years earlier, 100 00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:31,480 Speaker 1: had indicated that what many thought was a brand new 101 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:36,560 Speaker 1: American story actually was a very very ancient one, with 102 00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:39,720 Speaker 1: people hunting giant creatures so far back in time, these 103 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:44,760 Speaker 1: animals were no longer even found on earth. Walking along 104 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:48,400 Speaker 1: Blackwater Draws set into these vast plains that March afternoon, 105 00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,520 Speaker 1: the obvious observation to make was that the elephant hunt 106 00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:56,400 Speaker 1: did not last. Twenty eight of those mammoths died at 107 00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:59,960 Speaker 1: human hands in this spot. Except for an isolated pot 108 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,320 Speaker 1: population on a tiny island in the Burying Sea, all 109 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 1: the species of American mammoths went extinct during Clovis times. Then, 110 00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:12,840 Speaker 1: in the early nineteen seventies, archaeologists uncovered more than eight 111 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:17,920 Speaker 1: thousand artifacts at Blackwater draw from the Fulsome culture. The 112 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:22,400 Speaker 1: people who followed the Clovis people. In time, as indicated 113 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,679 Speaker 1: by the Fulsome site and many others like it across 114 00:08:25,720 --> 00:08:29,200 Speaker 1: the West, the extinction of the elephants had led the 115 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:33,600 Speaker 1: next inhabitants of the interior West, especially on the high plains, 116 00:08:33,640 --> 00:08:37,839 Speaker 1: to specialize and yet another of the great Pleascetocene species, 117 00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:44,800 Speaker 1: a massive early bison, now called bison antiquis. But like 118 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:49,320 Speaker 1: the mammos in time, Bison antiquis was also faded to 119 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:54,479 Speaker 1: become extinct. While Fulsome culture and its spent offs perfected 120 00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:59,040 Speaker 1: bison drives, corrals and at adle technology to enable them 121 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:04,040 Speaker 1: to survive some two thousand years around roughly eleven thousand 122 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:09,640 Speaker 1: years ago, this LifeWay too collapsed. Looking around us at 123 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:14,480 Speaker 1: these windy, usually brightly lit savannahs now bereft of both 124 00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:18,560 Speaker 1: elephants and giant bison, but populated in the present by 125 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:23,000 Speaker 1: oil wells and monocrop agriculture, led Steven and me to 126 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:27,559 Speaker 1: commence some reconstruction of the big patterns in the deep 127 00:09:27,679 --> 00:09:31,640 Speaker 1: time history of this place, track any part of the 128 00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:35,319 Speaker 1: world across the large expanses of time since humans arrived, 129 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:38,720 Speaker 1: and a story begins to unfold that demonstrates a set 130 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:44,079 Speaker 1: of principles about history. First, because the grand forces mean 131 00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:48,240 Speaker 1: that the Earth is an evolving and endlessly changing world. 132 00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:52,960 Speaker 1: No place remains the same across big history. The science 133 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:58,479 Speaker 1: of ecology once waxed eloquent about climax the biophysical reality 134 00:09:58,520 --> 00:10:04,560 Speaker 1: of natural environments if left undisturbed supposedly, but every environment 135 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:09,320 Speaker 1: is endlessly undergoing disturbance or recovery from it, so that 136 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:13,840 Speaker 1: what appears to be climaxes are merely snapshots in time 137 00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:18,080 Speaker 1: changing as we look, is in fact the normal state 138 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:23,680 Speaker 1: of the world. Second, we human beings, like every other species, 139 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:28,880 Speaker 1: alter the places where we live. The famous geographer Ye 140 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:33,600 Speaker 1: Thutwan once composed a simple and elegant aphorism I long 141 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:41,360 Speaker 1: ago committed a memory. Space plus culture equals place. Space 142 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:46,680 Speaker 1: plus culture equals place. What do you meant was take 143 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:52,720 Speaker 1: natural settings, add in human economies and technologies and ideas 144 00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:57,400 Speaker 1: about living, and what you get are places. Yet the 145 00:10:57,440 --> 00:11:01,720 Speaker 1: truth about life in a given place is that the 146 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:06,680 Speaker 1: past of a place never remains in the past. Only 147 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:09,480 Speaker 1: the first human inhabitants to occupy a piece of ground 148 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:14,600 Speaker 1: get to interact with an unaltered space. This is the 149 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:19,040 Speaker 1: biological principle that drove the human migrations out of Africa 150 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:23,199 Speaker 1: and around the world. The search for places other humans 151 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:27,959 Speaker 1: haven't yet altered remains a part of our psychological makeup. 152 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:30,520 Speaker 1: It's why we love to find ourselves on a trail 153 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:32,960 Speaker 1: where no one is in front of us, or on 154 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,320 Speaker 1: an overlook with no houses or other humans in sight. 155 00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:41,240 Speaker 1: It's why wilderness is so important to us. As for 156 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:46,920 Speaker 1: inhabiting places, since we succeed one another in place after place, 157 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:52,680 Speaker 1: we human inhabitants end up interacting not with pristine environments, 158 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 1: but with settings that have already been changed by the 159 00:11:56,320 --> 00:12:00,360 Speaker 1: people who have occupied the ground before us. Does the 160 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:03,040 Speaker 1: folsome people did in the wake of four hundred years 161 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:06,200 Speaker 1: of Clovis inhabitation of the high planes, all of us 162 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:11,840 Speaker 1: who come later are engaging with someone else's previously created place. 163 00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:17,440 Speaker 1: Henry David Threaux's famous passage about wishing to know an 164 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,600 Speaker 1: entire heaven and an entire Earth included a line where 165 00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:24,960 Speaker 1: he hoped some demi god, as he put it, hadn't 166 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:28,280 Speaker 1: preceded him and plucked from the heavens the best of 167 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:33,640 Speaker 1: the stars. Unfortunately for the natural world, that's often the 168 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:37,960 Speaker 1: narrative of human history. Someone else has already been there. 169 00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:41,200 Speaker 1: The real question usually has to do with which of 170 00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:47,040 Speaker 1: the best stars got erased and which few survived. What 171 00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:49,160 Speaker 1: I want to do with this episode is to lay 172 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:51,840 Speaker 1: out what Stephen and I dropped into that day on 173 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:55,800 Speaker 1: the High Plains, the general patterns of thirteen thousand years 174 00:12:56,160 --> 00:13:00,560 Speaker 1: of human conversion of space to place and then place 175 00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:04,600 Speaker 1: into another place. And in honor of that day at 176 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:07,040 Speaker 1: Blackwater Draw, I think the best way to do this 177 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,320 Speaker 1: is to concentrate on that country. The country we were 178 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,920 Speaker 1: visiting then. The High Plains is one example of what 179 00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,600 Speaker 1: seems to have happened in every place we live in 180 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,760 Speaker 1: the West. So I mean to provide the outlines of 181 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,000 Speaker 1: the big history. The French who study this in Europe 182 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:27,120 Speaker 1: call it La Longueiray in a region now divided by 183 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:29,760 Speaker 1: state lines, and that today we tend to think of 184 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:35,040 Speaker 1: as New Mexico or Texas, or Oklahoma or Colorado or Kansas. 185 00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:38,840 Speaker 1: Yet like most regions, the High Plains has long been 186 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:43,440 Speaker 1: something real and discernible in and of itself. Whether we 187 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:46,840 Speaker 1: call it Kansas or Colorado, the High Plains have been 188 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:50,520 Speaker 1: shaped fairly uniformly by the grand forces of the planet 189 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:53,760 Speaker 1: and by an American story that has given it a 190 00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:58,920 Speaker 1: regional art through time. Here's one insight for thinking about 191 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:03,920 Speaker 1: things like this. There's a theory about human settlement in place, 192 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:10,200 Speaker 1: assembled as a kind of convergence of history, geography, and ecology, 193 00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:16,200 Speaker 1: and it's sometimes called the theory of possibilism. An eccentric 194 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:21,800 Speaker 1: Kansas professor of ecological history named James Malin back in 195 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:27,240 Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties brainstormed that bioregional environments like the High 196 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:33,680 Speaker 1: Planes do not actually determine how people live in them. Instead, 197 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:37,800 Speaker 1: they offer up a range of possibilities from which we 198 00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:42,520 Speaker 1: choose based on our cultural preparation, what we recognize as 199 00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: potential resources, and our technological abilities. A region like the 200 00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 1: High Planes doesn't offer unlimited possibilities, though whaling or an 201 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:57,240 Speaker 1: economy based on processing timber doesn't fall within the range 202 00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:01,880 Speaker 1: of lifeways here yet on this as if sunlit grassland, 203 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:06,000 Speaker 1: whose offerings might seem quite limited, There's been a wide 204 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:10,840 Speaker 1: range of possibilities for human life from Clovis times to 205 00:15:10,920 --> 00:15:15,200 Speaker 1: the present. As is the case with every region of Earth, 206 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:20,920 Speaker 1: the geology, topography, climate, and ecology of the West High 207 00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:26,200 Speaker 1: Plains have been the fundamental keys to human life here. Generally, 208 00:15:26,640 --> 00:15:32,120 Speaker 1: this region's surface geology is a sedimentary outwash from the 209 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:38,560 Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains that buried ancient carboniferous life forms from the Permian, Triassic, 210 00:15:38,800 --> 00:15:43,120 Speaker 1: and in a few spots the Jurassic periods. The overlying 211 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:48,120 Speaker 1: erosional wash from the mountains also buried very old mountain 212 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:52,320 Speaker 1: stream runoff in the form of a fossil underground lake 213 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:57,840 Speaker 1: we now call the Oblalla aquifer As an erosional apron 214 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,920 Speaker 1: of the Rockies. The plain's surface gradually slopes downward in 215 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:05,880 Speaker 1: elevation from west to east, so despite its appearance to 216 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:11,680 Speaker 1: the eye, the topography is not actually flat. Long before 217 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:17,040 Speaker 1: Clovis hunters arrived, rivers like the Arkansas, the Cimarron, Canadian, 218 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:22,720 Speaker 1: and Pecos had carved arroyo and canyonated channels across this 219 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:28,280 Speaker 1: high plane surface. On its easternmost edge, that outwashed surface 220 00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:33,360 Speaker 1: presents as a sharp plateau, the cap Rock Escarpment. For 221 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,040 Speaker 1: the last million years, another set of rivers borne on 222 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:42,000 Speaker 1: the plateau itself, the Red Brazos and Colorado River of Texas, 223 00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:46,560 Speaker 1: have spilled off the escarpment through deep, brightly colored canyons 224 00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:52,240 Speaker 1: that expose the underlying Permian and Triassic rocks. Pelloduro Canyon, 225 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:55,560 Speaker 1: which I've mentioned a few times here lately in Texas's 226 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:59,680 Speaker 1: Panhandled is the most well known, but dozens of smaller 227 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:04,080 Speaker 1: million year old canyons run water off this giant plateau. 228 00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:09,320 Speaker 1: While geology and topography have remained fairly constant since humans 229 00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:12,880 Speaker 1: came to live here, climate and biology have changed greatly, 230 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:16,359 Speaker 1: and often Because the region is far inland from the 231 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,720 Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico and the Southern Rockies intercept much of 232 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,960 Speaker 1: the moisture coming from the Pacific, The High Plains has 233 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,560 Speaker 1: a semi arid climate since Clovis times. It's been drier 234 00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,840 Speaker 1: than the country on either side of it, typically bathed 235 00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:34,399 Speaker 1: in three hundred and twenty annual days of sunshine and 236 00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:39,840 Speaker 1: vigorously wind swept, but its climate has always been truly 237 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:45,080 Speaker 1: variable over time, sometimes producing cool, lush conditions, but there 238 00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:49,760 Speaker 1: are always drought episodes and raging dust storms. One major 239 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:52,720 Speaker 1: dry period since humans have been in America, the so 240 00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:56,920 Speaker 1: called Alta thermal prevailed for thousands of years on the 241 00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:00,879 Speaker 1: High Plains. This kind of topograph and this kind of 242 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:04,119 Speaker 1: climate have made the High Planes a short grass and 243 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:07,680 Speaker 1: mid height grassland for most of human history, and that's 244 00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:11,480 Speaker 1: important to this story. The energy that drives most terrestrial 245 00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:15,679 Speaker 1: systems comes directly from the sun, and sunny, semi arid 246 00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:21,040 Speaker 1: grasslands are a very direct converter of solar energy into 247 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:25,159 Speaker 1: forms that other life can use. In one simple step 248 00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:30,720 Speaker 1: of photosynthesis, thermodynamic energy streaming from the sun is directly 249 00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:35,600 Speaker 1: available to animals that eat grass, then to other animals 250 00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:39,480 Speaker 1: that eat the grass eaters. So when early humans came 251 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:43,359 Speaker 1: to the high planes, they found biological life centered on 252 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:47,920 Speaker 1: the conversion of this massive solar energy charge had produced 253 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:52,480 Speaker 1: a remarkable and diverse world of different life forms. Those 254 00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:56,920 Speaker 1: life forms, elephants and bison, and their wide array of predators, 255 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:02,560 Speaker 1: became the first possible basis of human high planes and habitation. 256 00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,840 Speaker 1: One other element influenced the range of possibilities on the 257 00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:15,639 Speaker 1: high planes geographical connections. As social animals, we humans seek 258 00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:19,280 Speaker 1: out contacts with other human groups. If those groups live 259 00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:23,160 Speaker 1: in environments different from ours. We trade what we produce 260 00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:28,159 Speaker 1: for things we lack and they have. Today's global market 261 00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:31,920 Speaker 1: economy is the modern result, but more limited forms of 262 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:36,040 Speaker 1: the idea have always been around. During every part of 263 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:40,240 Speaker 1: high plane's history, people joined in economic systems that tied 264 00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:44,760 Speaker 1: them by trade to people living somewhere else. Quite often, 265 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,639 Speaker 1: when people are using local nature to provide economic resources 266 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:53,000 Speaker 1: for people living in other places, those trade networks act 267 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:57,159 Speaker 1: to simplify the natural world. There are plenty of examples 268 00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:01,760 Speaker 1: to follow. Here is the basic template of history in 269 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:05,679 Speaker 1: most of the West, in America and the world on 270 00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:09,280 Speaker 1: the high Plains from the time of the Clovis elephant hunters. 271 00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:14,720 Speaker 1: The Fulsome hunters inherited a Clovis place that Clovis culture 272 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:19,560 Speaker 1: had changed from its original condition. The place fashioned by 273 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:23,919 Speaker 1: the Clovis people no longer offered the possibility of a 274 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,560 Speaker 1: life based on hunting elephants. In the couple of thousands 275 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:30,840 Speaker 1: of years that followed, the Fulsome people and their several 276 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:35,359 Speaker 1: offshoots dominated the high planes and concentrated their economies on 277 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:41,359 Speaker 1: the remaining animals, particularly herds of giant pleisosne bison. But 278 00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:45,960 Speaker 1: by nine thousand years ago, the huge Pleistocene bison were 279 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:51,120 Speaker 1: also gone, so were ground sloths, camels, horses, dire wolves, 280 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:56,159 Speaker 1: American cheetahs. Entire ecologies that humans had found on the 281 00:20:56,240 --> 00:21:01,600 Speaker 1: high plains had vanished. So the next inhabitants inherited a 282 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:08,439 Speaker 1: place pretty drastically altered by two major predecessors. These new people, 283 00:21:08,760 --> 00:21:12,720 Speaker 1: a collection of slightly different regional cultural groups who are 284 00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:16,720 Speaker 1: collectively known as the Archaics, would live full, in rich 285 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:20,800 Speaker 1: lives across the high plains for the next eight thousand years. 286 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:25,680 Speaker 1: To offer a sense of scale that's almost forty times 287 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:30,920 Speaker 1: longer than the United States has existed, Archaic peoples were 288 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:35,639 Speaker 1: hunter gatherers who devoted far more attention to plant gathering 289 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,320 Speaker 1: than had their ancestors. But on the windswept, sun drenched 290 00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:44,480 Speaker 1: high planes grasslands, it was still a grazing animal that 291 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:51,040 Speaker 1: converted sunlight most efficiently into energy. Mammoths, camels, and horses 292 00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 1: had left no successor species, but bison did. With most 293 00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:00,919 Speaker 1: of its grazing competition eliminated. The modern bison floated in 294 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:06,440 Speaker 1: an almost weed like efflorescence, better adapted to the grasslands 295 00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:09,960 Speaker 1: than even the Archaic people who hunted them. Bison made 296 00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:15,160 Speaker 1: possible an archaic high planes place that would survive across 297 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:19,720 Speaker 1: those eighty centuries. Think of that as we celebrate two 298 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:25,000 Speaker 1: and a half centuries of the United States. The archaic 299 00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:29,240 Speaker 1: high planes place did confront a major climate emergency that 300 00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:33,920 Speaker 1: demanded an extreme response. About sixty five hundred years ago, 301 00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,720 Speaker 1: climate in the American West cycled into an extremely warm, 302 00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:41,720 Speaker 1: dry phase that lasted nearly two thousand years. This is 303 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:46,479 Speaker 1: the long hot drought climate historians called the Alta thermal. 304 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,360 Speaker 1: It may be a predictor for our response to global 305 00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,200 Speaker 1: climate change in the West. In our time, the Alta 306 00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,639 Speaker 1: thermal came close to turning the High Planes into a 307 00:22:56,680 --> 00:23:00,960 Speaker 1: true desert and a vacant one. Not only did bison 308 00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: leave the region for wetter conditions to the east and north, 309 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:09,200 Speaker 1: evidence is strong that most of the Archaic peoples did 310 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:12,800 Speaker 1: the same. While a few villages of Archaics held on 311 00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:17,160 Speaker 1: at permanent wetlands like Blackwater Draw and at Lubbock Lake, 312 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,440 Speaker 1: where springs bubbled the Oglalla aquafor to the surface, pretty 313 00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:26,800 Speaker 1: much everybody else left. Starting about two thousand years ago, 314 00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:30,440 Speaker 1: significant change, occurring on both sides of the High Plains 315 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:35,320 Speaker 1: began to create a new set of human possibilities. Crop 316 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:39,760 Speaker 1: growing as a brand new LifeWay, diffused northward from its 317 00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:43,439 Speaker 1: invention in Mexico to groups like the Mugga Yawn and 318 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:47,040 Speaker 1: the Anasazi of the desert southwest, and to the mound 319 00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:53,040 Speaker 1: building Mississippian cultures of the Mississippi Valley. When farming societies 320 00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,760 Speaker 1: developed on either side of the High Plains. The opportunity 321 00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,480 Speaker 1: to create new kinds of local places was under way 322 00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,600 Speaker 1: in president New Mexico, just west of the High Plains, 323 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:10,520 Speaker 1: corn growing, pottery making, pueblo building societies of great sophistication 324 00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:15,479 Speaker 1: and far reaching trade networks emerged to cast spheres of 325 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:20,040 Speaker 1: influence onto the plains. Only a few hundred years later, 326 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:25,520 Speaker 1: agricultural village dwelling Mississippian peoples Caddo and speakers in what 327 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:31,080 Speaker 1: is now East Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana also established vibrant 328 00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,199 Speaker 1: societies that began to push up the rivers towards the 329 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,480 Speaker 1: High Plains, looking for trading partners. That trade took on 330 00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:43,400 Speaker 1: a tantalizing form. What High Plains people had in profusion 331 00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:47,200 Speaker 1: were the products of the bison hunt. They had maroon 332 00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:51,639 Speaker 1: and blue striped flints from a famous quarry called Alibates, 333 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:57,639 Speaker 1: beautifully tanned robes, and especially dried protein in abundance. What 334 00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,679 Speaker 1: they had always had in ins dificient supply of was 335 00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:06,760 Speaker 1: a source of carbohydrates. With agricultural people not far away, 336 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:11,800 Speaker 1: both hunters and farmers could overcome their dietary bottlenecks. A 337 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:16,840 Speaker 1: form of mutualism for all groups involved luxury and status. 338 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:21,560 Speaker 1: Goods like turquoise from the Pueblo mines lubricated that exchange. 339 00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,359 Speaker 1: While these trade items would change over time, immersion into 340 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:30,080 Speaker 1: far flung regional trade networks was a new possibility that 341 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:36,679 Speaker 1: didn't depend on one's local resources to create place with 342 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:41,000 Speaker 1: a more imaginative take on the possibilities now high planes, 343 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:46,760 Speaker 1: people pursued life ways of increasing complexity between twelve hundred 344 00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:50,480 Speaker 1: and fifteen hundred. In fact, a famous experiment on the 345 00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,320 Speaker 1: high planes involved a group called the Antelope Creek people, 346 00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:59,080 Speaker 1: who tried agricultural towns far out in the heart of 347 00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:04,080 Speaker 1: the high planes along the Canadian and Republican rivers. Antelope 348 00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:09,080 Speaker 1: Creek crops, points, pottery, and tools came from both the 349 00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:14,480 Speaker 1: Eastern and the Western farming traditions. Rather than the hide 350 00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,640 Speaker 1: tepees of the buffalo hunters, these people built rock slab 351 00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:24,480 Speaker 1: houses of multiple rooms, including one built Acoma style on 352 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,560 Speaker 1: the top of a butte now called landergen Mesa. The 353 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,040 Speaker 1: architecture seemed to be based on the Pueblo model from 354 00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:37,560 Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty miles farther west. Ideas from multiple 355 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,680 Speaker 1: cultures had made the act of creating place on the 356 00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:47,080 Speaker 1: high plains more imaginative than it had ever been. Crop growing, though, 357 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,680 Speaker 1: is a strategy to extract solar energy directly, but plants 358 00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:56,040 Speaker 1: need moisture too, and the Antelope Creek people ultimately couldn't 359 00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:59,560 Speaker 1: sustain farming on the high plains with the moisture that 360 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,679 Speaker 1: fell from the sky. Drought finally caused them to abandon 361 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:08,280 Speaker 1: their experiment. Other groups Catto and speakers like the Wichitas 362 00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,720 Speaker 1: and Pawnees and sue and speakers like the O Sages 363 00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,640 Speaker 1: and Mandans, would later push farming villages part way up 364 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,320 Speaker 1: the plains rivers, but it required a new technology in 365 00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:23,720 Speaker 1: the twentieth century before anyone else would try to create 366 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,560 Speaker 1: farming places as far out on the high plains as 367 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:33,720 Speaker 1: the Antelope Creek people had six hundred years earlier. When 368 00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:38,000 Speaker 1: Old worlders arrived on the scene and founded places like 369 00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:43,200 Speaker 1: Santa Fe, Nacotish, New Orleans, and Saint Louis, radically new 370 00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:49,240 Speaker 1: possibilities opened up on the high plains. Two developments, domesticated 371 00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: animals from Europe and the bottomless trade lusts of a 372 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:59,720 Speaker 1: truly global market, created dramatic new possibilities out on the grasslands. 373 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,960 Speaker 1: One of the animals was an old American native. The 374 00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:09,480 Speaker 1: horse returned to America, it underwent a stunning ecological release. 375 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,920 Speaker 1: It took less than a century for new dominant horse riders, 376 00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:19,560 Speaker 1: the Comanches, the Cheyennes, the Kiowas to merge this animal 377 00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:24,119 Speaker 1: with the bison of antiquity to create a new LifeWay 378 00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,639 Speaker 1: and a new place in the global market. Trade economy 379 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:32,480 Speaker 1: for the high planes horse and bison more than doubled 380 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,880 Speaker 1: the human capture of solar energy streaming into the grasslands. 381 00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,680 Speaker 1: These horse riders built on old trade networks to exchange 382 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,920 Speaker 1: bison products, both for crops from farmers and now for 383 00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:51,920 Speaker 1: European industrial goods. But the Comanches at least still saw 384 00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:56,840 Speaker 1: the solar connection. They made the sun their primary object 385 00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:01,040 Speaker 1: of religious veneration, and visitors to their vi villa said 386 00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,840 Speaker 1: that in the mornings, the Comanches would hang their shields 387 00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,280 Speaker 1: in full view of the sun and rotate them throughout 388 00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:13,600 Speaker 1: the day like a field of leather sunflowers, absorbing sun power. 389 00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,920 Speaker 1: Of course, high plane settlement and the creation of place 390 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,880 Speaker 1: didn't end here. The people who now came to the 391 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:27,720 Speaker 1: region had old World cultures that benefited from ideas and 392 00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:33,000 Speaker 1: technology from across the globe, bison and even grass would 393 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:38,280 Speaker 1: not survive them. Once their global market economy entirely obliterated 394 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,120 Speaker 1: bison for a period of well over a decade, new 395 00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:47,520 Speaker 1: Mexicans from west to the Plains directed new grazing animals, 396 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:52,240 Speaker 1: in their case enormous flocks of sheep, onto the now 397 00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:58,080 Speaker 1: strangely silent high planes grasslands. This Old World animal introduction 398 00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,920 Speaker 1: began the alteration of high plains ecology by weakening the 399 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:09,600 Speaker 1: grass cover and introducing invasive weed species like tumbleweeds. Then 400 00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,920 Speaker 1: Texans and other Americans from Old World backgrounds poured in 401 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,960 Speaker 1: from the east and populated the high plains with cattle 402 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,840 Speaker 1: and ranches. Their animus at many of the remaining wild 403 00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:29,400 Speaker 1: species eliminated wolves that high plains ancient keystone predator. They 404 00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,640 Speaker 1: poisoned paride dogs and blackfooted ferrets out of existence. They 405 00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,560 Speaker 1: even waged a war of annihilation on coyotes and eagles. 406 00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,520 Speaker 1: By the early twentieth century, with deep drilling available to 407 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:49,000 Speaker 1: them to tap underground resources, these new arrivals discovered the 408 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:54,320 Speaker 1: fossilized solar energy of the High Plains, carbon wealth in 409 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:59,160 Speaker 1: the Permian and other formations buried underfoot. This was a 410 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:04,560 Speaker 1: possibility for creating place that was entirely invisible and unimagined 411 00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: to all previous inhabitants. Now it organized the ancient rim 412 00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,840 Speaker 1: of the elephant and the thousands of years of bison 413 00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,680 Speaker 1: into a kind of landman place of oily trash line 414 00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:24,440 Speaker 1: roads and mechanical nodding oil field pumpjacks. The high plains, 415 00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:29,080 Speaker 1: especially the Texas and New Mexico parks, is still such 416 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:34,520 Speaker 1: a place, but there's competition now. Optimistic Americans became the 417 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,640 Speaker 1: first to try to farm the high planes, since the 418 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,880 Speaker 1: Antelope Creek people had failed. They began by committing a 419 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:48,040 Speaker 1: kind of ecological sacrilege. They plowed under the ancient grasslands 420 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,680 Speaker 1: that had been so effective at converting sunlight to useful energy. 421 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,520 Speaker 1: That looked like a tragic mistake initially when a de 422 00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:02,920 Speaker 1: grassed high plane's hit by drought collapse into the dust bowl, 423 00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:10,160 Speaker 1: the most epic disaster and human out migration in Western history. Nonetheless, 424 00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:15,959 Speaker 1: the early nineteen forties produced a new technological miracle, v 425 00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:20,720 Speaker 1: eight automobile engines strong enough to pump water up out 426 00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:24,720 Speaker 1: of the vast Oglalla aquifer for making the high planes 427 00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:30,520 Speaker 1: into a cotton empire. Today, oil field pump jacks and 428 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:35,360 Speaker 1: cotton to the horizons. Get some visual relief with the glinting, 429 00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:41,080 Speaker 1: spinning propellers of don Quixote like wind farms. But you 430 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,160 Speaker 1: suspect that sucking up fossil carbon and drawing on a 431 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:50,080 Speaker 1: shrinking underground lake to grow cotton are experiments in place 432 00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,960 Speaker 1: building that will have barely half the lifespan of Clovis 433 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:59,280 Speaker 1: culture itself. The briefest High Planes human episodes so far 434 00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:04,600 Speaker 1: maybe half the lifespan. So if the present version of 435 00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,280 Speaker 1: place on the high Plains is your thing, all I 436 00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:13,360 Speaker 1: can say is best celebrated while you can working through all. 437 00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,200 Speaker 1: This was pretty much how the conversation went as Steven 438 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,960 Speaker 1: and I drove back to Santa Fe from our visit 439 00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,080 Speaker 1: to Blackwater Draw. Sure everywhere in America has experienced this 440 00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:28,600 Speaker 1: kind of sequence of human places superimposed on natural landscapes 441 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:33,200 Speaker 1: and previous human places. But somehow, amid the pump jacks 442 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,440 Speaker 1: and the flared natural gas, the center pivot irrigation, and 443 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:42,560 Speaker 1: the wind farms, the obliteration of original nature from elephants 444 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,560 Speaker 1: to what's here now seems like a fairy tale that's 445 00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 1: almost not believable. In most American regions, The previous inhabitants 446 00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:56,600 Speaker 1: altered the world, often repeatedly, but usually they handed down 447 00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,440 Speaker 1: some semblance of original nature. On the high Plains today, 448 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,720 Speaker 1: you have to look hard to find tiny pieces of 449 00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:09,440 Speaker 1: ground where any part of that original high plains grasslands 450 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,640 Speaker 1: to the horizons still exists. The best preserved pieces on 451 00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,880 Speaker 1: the high Plains today are its canyon lands and breaks 452 00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:22,240 Speaker 1: country that was just too rugged to remake. It's intriguing 453 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,040 Speaker 1: to look at this place now and imagine the stories 454 00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,680 Speaker 1: through time that brought us to this point. It's also 455 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:33,600 Speaker 1: a frustrating reality check attempting here. What American Prairie is 456 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,719 Speaker 1: trying in Montana are the Southern Plains Land Trust is 457 00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,680 Speaker 1: doing in Colorado. Buying up ranches, tearing down fences, and 458 00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,160 Speaker 1: restoring their parts of the modern High Plains to some 459 00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,680 Speaker 1: semblance of its various pasts is probably as difficult on 460 00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,560 Speaker 1: the Southern High Plains as it is anywhere in America. 461 00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:59,040 Speaker 1: Given all the destruction and infrastructure of modern place building, 462 00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,960 Speaker 1: I and areas, ever pull off large scale twenty first 463 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,120 Speaker 1: century rewilding projects here, it will no doubt be one 464 00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,800 Speaker 1: of the epic conservation accomplishments of modern American history. 465 00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,280 Speaker 2: So, Dan, this this script covers a lot of ground, 466 00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,440 Speaker 2: and I'll begin it where you do with Clovist and 467 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:32,440 Speaker 2: Folsome people. And I guess the first question I wanted 468 00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:36,799 Speaker 2: to ask is, you know, you grow up and you 469 00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,640 Speaker 2: sort of think of, oh, there were cave people and 470 00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 2: then there was civilization, right, And there's this long, you know, 471 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,520 Speaker 2: oversimplification that I think is still pretty prevalent in our 472 00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:53,839 Speaker 2: culture of thinking of cave people and civilization. But as 473 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,440 Speaker 2: you point out, there's there are these entire civilizations that 474 00:35:57,480 --> 00:35:59,600 Speaker 2: have their own technology, their own culture, and so I 475 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,360 Speaker 2: wonder it's something that's become very fascinating to me. But 476 00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:05,200 Speaker 2: I wonder what it is that you get out of 477 00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:14,480 Speaker 2: thinking about these cultures or these people as their own societies, right, 478 00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,680 Speaker 2: like thinking instead of just looking at this broad spance 479 00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:21,440 Speaker 2: of time as people were kind of hunter gatherers. But 480 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:25,520 Speaker 2: what you drill down here into the differences between Clovis 481 00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,879 Speaker 2: and Folsome and those who came after. And I sort 482 00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:29,960 Speaker 2: of wonder what it is if you were trying to 483 00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,720 Speaker 2: convince someone of the utility of thinking about these groups 484 00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:35,719 Speaker 2: in such specific terms, what that might be. 485 00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:43,040 Speaker 1: Well, I think, to me, what an exercise like this 486 00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:47,680 Speaker 1: one is all about, and Steven and I did as 487 00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,279 Speaker 1: we were driving back from visiting that Clovis site. It's 488 00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,759 Speaker 1: been twenty years or so ago when we did this. 489 00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,840 Speaker 1: I mean, this was kind of what we were trying 490 00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:04,160 Speaker 1: to assemble. Okay, how do you get from elephant hunters 491 00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:08,879 Speaker 1: thirteen thousand years ago to a landscape that's dominated by 492 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:15,080 Speaker 1: cotton fields and oil feel pumpjacks and what falls in 493 00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:20,000 Speaker 1: between to make that possible? So, I think part of 494 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,719 Speaker 1: the appeal of something like this to me, and one 495 00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,719 Speaker 1: could do this by the way. I mean, this is 496 00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:32,000 Speaker 1: just an example that applies to the the Southern high Plains, 497 00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,799 Speaker 1: but you could do this to just about any landscape 498 00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,200 Speaker 1: around the world. And what it does, it seems to me, 499 00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:42,359 Speaker 1: is it applies a kind of a context to who 500 00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,520 Speaker 1: we are. We are beads on a string, and that 501 00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,760 Speaker 1: string extends a very, very long way back into the past. 502 00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,440 Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the script with respect to this 503 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,000 Speaker 1: particular story, I mean for the archaics, and they're just 504 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,120 Speaker 1: one out of several groups that obviously occupy this same ground. 505 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:07,000 Speaker 1: I mean, they are on the ground eighty times longer 506 00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:11,160 Speaker 1: than the United States has existed in that same part 507 00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:14,239 Speaker 1: of the world, and I think a lot of Americans 508 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,600 Speaker 1: we tend to be obviously dominated by thoughts about our 509 00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,440 Speaker 1: own lives and about the present. I mean, we go 510 00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,239 Speaker 1: through our lives in many cases sort of unaware, not 511 00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:31,120 Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that we're a bed on this 512 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,560 Speaker 1: very very long string, and that string goes back in 513 00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:40,759 Speaker 1: fascinating ways into the past. And probably the most important 514 00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,560 Speaker 1: thing that you could take from this is and clearly 515 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,680 Speaker 1: I borrowed that aphorism from Yefuchwan, the famous geographer who 516 00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,920 Speaker 1: came up with the idea of how you create human 517 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:59,400 Speaker 1: places on the landscape. Space plus culture equals place, he said, 518 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:04,839 Speaker 1: And part of that understanding then enables you to realize 519 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:09,200 Speaker 1: that the space that we occupy now, the places that 520 00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:12,799 Speaker 1: we've created on the space of a place like Montana, 521 00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:18,120 Speaker 1: SA or West Texas or eastern New Mexico, those places 522 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:25,240 Speaker 1: have been changed by previous inhabitants multiple times over the past. 523 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,960 Speaker 1: And so part of the I mean, the two kind 524 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,439 Speaker 1: of models that I try to present here for people 525 00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:36,600 Speaker 1: to think about this sort of big history is Yefu 526 00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,719 Speaker 1: Twan's place or space plus culture equals place. And then 527 00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,640 Speaker 1: the other idea, of course, is this idea of possiblism, 528 00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:49,560 Speaker 1: which takes Yefu Twan's idea and tries to make you 529 00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:54,759 Speaker 1: understand that every group that comes to a particular landscape 530 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,479 Speaker 1: brings a different way of looking at it, and they're 531 00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,080 Speaker 1: able to create a place based on their abilities, their 532 00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:08,040 Speaker 1: cultural abilities, their ideas, their technology. And so this particular 533 00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,600 Speaker 1: spot on the ground, how do you get from elephants 534 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:15,040 Speaker 1: to oil wells is a kind of a good example 535 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:19,160 Speaker 1: I think of how that works, not just in this spot, 536 00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:23,440 Speaker 1: but probably across most of the world. And you know, 537 00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,480 Speaker 1: to answer your question why does one do this, I 538 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,800 Speaker 1: think it provides you with some sort of context about 539 00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:35,359 Speaker 1: the spot you occupy in this large progression of history. 540 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:40,440 Speaker 2: And one element of that, especially when you talk about 541 00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:48,080 Speaker 2: transitions between cultures in this long sweeping history, is environmental collapse. 542 00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:50,399 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I. 543 00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,920 Speaker 2: Think if you were to just throw out that word 544 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,160 Speaker 2: to someone on the street, that's something that's in the future, 545 00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:03,560 Speaker 2: and it's sort of this large long declension narrative where 546 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:07,680 Speaker 2: we're still on our way towards that. It hasn't happened yet. 547 00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,840 Speaker 2: But if you look into deep time, I mean, you 548 00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,560 Speaker 2: don't even have to go that deep really in North America, 549 00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:17,120 Speaker 2: or Central America. There are these examples again and again 550 00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,960 Speaker 2: of societies that suffered environmental collapse and catastrophe. 551 00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:25,240 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that's the explanation, for example, for why 552 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,160 Speaker 1: the Clovis culture comes to an end. These are people 553 00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:30,640 Speaker 1: who specialize. I mean they did other things too, but 554 00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,560 Speaker 1: they seem to have been something of specialists of a 555 00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:39,440 Speaker 1: specialist economy based on elephant hunting, on hunting mammos, and 556 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,680 Speaker 1: when the mammoths were gone, that particular culture was no 557 00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:47,840 Speaker 1: longer viable. So there was one early environmental collapse that 558 00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,480 Speaker 1: dates back to something like twelve thousand years ago. And 559 00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,480 Speaker 1: then they're followed by the clove or the folsome people 560 00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,880 Speaker 1: who have another specialty, which is on these large plesss 561 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,719 Speaker 1: in bison. And after a couple of thousand years, those 562 00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,759 Speaker 1: animals are gone too, and you have another collapse. And 563 00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:07,400 Speaker 1: so this story, if you track through it and think 564 00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,759 Speaker 1: in the terms that you just presented for us, is 565 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:17,200 Speaker 1: actually a sequence of collapses. Sometimes they're supplied internally and 566 00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:21,720 Speaker 1: sometimes they're supplied from external forces, which is probably what happened, 567 00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:25,080 Speaker 1: for example, to the bison and the collapse of the 568 00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,399 Speaker 1: bison economy that people had relied on for so many 569 00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:33,799 Speaker 1: thousands of years. But nonetheless that's another instance of an 570 00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:39,000 Speaker 1: environmental collapse. That means that you have to try something else. 571 00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,880 Speaker 1: You've got to come up with another strategy. And towards 572 00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,440 Speaker 1: the end of this script, I tried fairly quickly to 573 00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:50,560 Speaker 1: describe following the collapse of bison what you get as 574 00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,080 Speaker 1: a period, and it is a fairly brief one when 575 00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,759 Speaker 1: sheep herders from the Southwest will come to this landscape 576 00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,360 Speaker 1: and for about fifteen or twenty or thirty years they'll 577 00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,239 Speaker 1: herd sheep across the country, and then they're going to 578 00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:10,200 Speaker 1: be pushed back into New Mexico by essentially Anglo Americans 579 00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:14,120 Speaker 1: moving out from Texas who bring cattle, and so there's 580 00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:20,400 Speaker 1: yet a ranching, a second kind of agricultural place building 581 00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:26,759 Speaker 1: on the part of those Anglo Americans, and they're essentially ranchers, 582 00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,400 Speaker 1: and of course they have their own way of changing 583 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:33,120 Speaker 1: the landscape and creating a new place, and one of 584 00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,400 Speaker 1: those is by getting rid of wolves and mountain lions 585 00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:40,080 Speaker 1: and coyotes and prairie dog towns and on and on, 586 00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:44,719 Speaker 1: eagles and so forth. So if you look at this 587 00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,640 Speaker 1: from the kind of big perspective, you not only see 588 00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,279 Speaker 1: these environmental collapses that lead to the next step and 589 00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,120 Speaker 1: people reimagining how one lives on a landscape like this. 590 00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,480 Speaker 1: But you get a good sense, I think particularly you 591 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,840 Speaker 1: get a good sense when you reach each the present 592 00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,360 Speaker 1: that all these people who have lived on this particular 593 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:09,279 Speaker 1: landscape in the past have altered it in ways that 594 00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:13,880 Speaker 1: create a different world for those of us who are 595 00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,800 Speaker 1: alive now. I mean, you go down to the southern 596 00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,120 Speaker 1: high plains. Now you don't see wolves, you don't see bison, 597 00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:25,640 Speaker 1: you don't see mammoths, you don't see in fact, in 598 00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:30,800 Speaker 1: many places grasslands remaining that produced so much solar energy 599 00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:35,040 Speaker 1: for all these early cultures. What you instead see is 600 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:39,480 Speaker 1: a world that has been transformed for the modern global economy. 601 00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,520 Speaker 1: It's been turned into cotton fields and pumping units. 602 00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:49,719 Speaker 2: And you sort of bring this point up throughout the 603 00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:54,400 Speaker 2: script that one of the ways in which environmental historians 604 00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:59,760 Speaker 2: look at the past and analyze, you know, a given 605 00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,320 Speaker 2: sis society is how they utilize energy. Yeah, and you 606 00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:07,320 Speaker 2: talk about because Elliott West, I think in the in 607 00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:11,719 Speaker 2: the Contested Planes, Elliott West, he spends a few pages 608 00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:15,440 Speaker 2: describing this this cycle of energy from the sun, and 609 00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:20,399 Speaker 2: this is where as organisms we you know, that's what 610 00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,560 Speaker 2: that's what sort of allows humanity to flourish in places, 611 00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,360 Speaker 2: is their ability to utilize energy from the natural world, 612 00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:28,160 Speaker 2: and you bring that up to the presence. So I 613 00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:32,480 Speaker 2: wonder if you could sort of talk about why, why 614 00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:35,919 Speaker 2: why environmental historians are interested in these questions and sort 615 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,239 Speaker 2: of how it what insights it offers. As far as 616 00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:40,319 Speaker 2: the great planes. 617 00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,400 Speaker 1: Well, with the great planes, clearly, I mean what you 618 00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:48,160 Speaker 1: had was a world that was propelled by solar energy, 619 00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,040 Speaker 1: and it was a fairly direct translation of the energy 620 00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:57,799 Speaker 1: from the sun into plants via photosynthesis, producing grasses that 621 00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:02,839 Speaker 1: were eaten by grazing animal and then of course predators 622 00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:06,480 Speaker 1: and humans do play the role of predators in these 623 00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:10,120 Speaker 1: early economies, are able to eat the animals that eat grass. 624 00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,160 Speaker 1: So we're interested in this kind of thing throughout history 625 00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:19,480 Speaker 1: because societies of every kind, ecologies of every kind have 626 00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:24,800 Speaker 1: to run on energy of some form, and solar energy 627 00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:30,160 Speaker 1: is the most widely used, particularly has been up until 628 00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:34,040 Speaker 1: the last few hundred years of human existence. I mean, 629 00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:37,120 Speaker 1: we've relied on places that produce a lot of solar energy. 630 00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:43,440 Speaker 1: So grasslands in the past were really wonderful spots for humans, 631 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,160 Speaker 1: and it's probably no accident that that's the kind of 632 00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:51,800 Speaker 1: country that we evolved into consciousness in. We were drawn 633 00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:57,400 Speaker 1: out of forest into grasslands in Africa because those grasslands 634 00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,440 Speaker 1: were producing a kind of a direct translation of solar 635 00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:04,000 Speaker 1: energy into the kind of energy that we could use, 636 00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,120 Speaker 1: into the sort of food sources that we could use. 637 00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:12,840 Speaker 1: And historians, i think have been intrigued by this because 638 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:18,680 Speaker 1: we've realized that over the past several generations of human history, 639 00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:23,400 Speaker 1: we've moved away from this sort of direct application of 640 00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:27,680 Speaker 1: solar power into the use of in the modern world. 641 00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:32,320 Speaker 1: Of course, it's been driven largely by fossil solar power, 642 00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,400 Speaker 1: by the kinds of power that one is able to 643 00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:44,320 Speaker 1: translate from these buried ancient sources of energy of carbon 644 00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:49,280 Speaker 1: that we began tapping into with the Great Industrial Revolution 645 00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:52,960 Speaker 1: that used coal, and now, of course oil is our 646 00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:57,239 Speaker 1: primary source of fossil fuel. And so that story, I 647 00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:01,240 Speaker 1: mean is really visible in the out of the southern 648 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:06,960 Speaker 1: high plains. And it's interesting to me that the grassland 649 00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:15,120 Speaker 1: solar direct solar powered phase of this story occupies a 650 00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:21,200 Speaker 1: much larger piece of time than the fossil fuel story. 651 00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:23,440 Speaker 1: The fossil fuel story in this part of the world 652 00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:27,280 Speaker 1: only dates to about nineteen hundred and so it's little 653 00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:32,080 Speaker 1: more than a century old. On the other hand, you 654 00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:38,480 Speaker 1: go back thirteen thousand years with lifestyles based primarily on 655 00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:42,080 Speaker 1: solar energy. So it's kind of another one of those 656 00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:46,680 Speaker 1: fascinating things to think about, and that's probably why histories 657 00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:47,920 Speaker 1: have spent a lot of time with it. 658 00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,880 Speaker 2: One last question, because you mentioned it in your previous answer. 659 00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,200 Speaker 2: But when a lot of people think of grasslands, they 660 00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:03,399 Speaker 2: think of a big empty right, Yeah, but you raised 661 00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,319 Speaker 2: the point in this article that it's one of our 662 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,400 Speaker 2: most threatened landscapes. It's one of our most threatened habitats. 663 00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,400 Speaker 2: There's only a few chunks here and there that exist 664 00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:17,000 Speaker 2: as as they were, and it's still shrinking. So I 665 00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:21,720 Speaker 2: wonder if you can just speak to appreciation for grasslands 666 00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:24,840 Speaker 2: as a Western landscape and in sort of the current 667 00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:26,240 Speaker 2: state of our grasslands. 668 00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,480 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a good observation, to be sure, because 669 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:36,160 Speaker 1: I mean, grasslands are one of the most threatened ecosystems 670 00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,720 Speaker 1: all around the world, not just in the United States, 671 00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,959 Speaker 1: and what happened to our grasslands and of course our 672 00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:48,480 Speaker 1: grand We have grasslands in many parts of North America. 673 00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,000 Speaker 1: But the vast grasslands of the Great Plains, that five 674 00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,080 Speaker 1: hundred miles basically west of the Mississippi River up to 675 00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:59,800 Speaker 1: the foothills of the Rockies was the that was the 676 00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,799 Speaker 1: great Bison Belt. That was sort of the version of 677 00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:08,839 Speaker 1: an American Serengetti with all these diverse animals, and it 678 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,360 Speaker 1: was a part of the West. And I'll talk about 679 00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,719 Speaker 1: this in one of the future episodes. It was a 680 00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:18,160 Speaker 1: part of the West that unlike the Rockies, unlike the 681 00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:23,160 Speaker 1: Colorado Plateau, unlike the rainforest of the Pacific Coast, that 682 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:30,000 Speaker 1: didn't get much public land. Most of the Great Plains, 683 00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:35,160 Speaker 1: because it seemed to be easily plowed up and easily homesteaded, 684 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:41,239 Speaker 1: ended up being privatized. And that privatization, I mean, it's 685 00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:46,279 Speaker 1: obviously one of the great legends and stories of the 686 00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:51,640 Speaker 1: American West, the homesteading story. But that homesteading story basically 687 00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:56,200 Speaker 1: destroyed a lot of the Western ecology of the grasslands. 688 00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,880 Speaker 1: And so the grasslands ended up many of them being plowed, 689 00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:04,160 Speaker 1: being infested with weeds by the introduction of domestic animals 690 00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:06,680 Speaker 1: from other parts of the world and hay from other 691 00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,640 Speaker 1: parts of the world, and as a result, we've struggled 692 00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:15,319 Speaker 1: in our own time to try to recreate some facsimile 693 00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:18,960 Speaker 1: of what our great grasslands once were. I mean, that's 694 00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,920 Speaker 1: what American Prairie in Central Montana, I think, is trying 695 00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,799 Speaker 1: to do. They're trying to once again focus on the 696 00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:31,640 Speaker 1: grasslands in this wonderful Serengetti country we once had, and 697 00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:34,600 Speaker 1: also trying to reintroduce some of the animals that were 698 00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,480 Speaker 1: lost from it. So it's one of the great I 699 00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:43,000 Speaker 1: think losses and in some respects kind of historical mistakes 700 00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:48,200 Speaker 1: of the frontier of the American West, that so much 701 00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,680 Speaker 1: of that country was torn up and destroyed. I mean, 702 00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,040 Speaker 1: I talked a little about the dust Bowl in this 703 00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,319 Speaker 1: particular episode, and I'll talk about it more later, but 704 00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:00,880 Speaker 1: it of course is the greatest environ our mental tragedy 705 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,280 Speaker 1: in the history of the American West, and it takes 706 00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:05,000 Speaker 1: place in this kind of landscape. 707 00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:07,359 Speaker 2: Well, Dan, appreciate it. 708 00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:08,680 Speaker 1: Thank you, Antal. Thanks