pyroculture

Noun

pyroculture (countable and uncountable, plural pyrocultures)

1. The use of controlled burning, chiefly by hunter-gatherers, as a form of ecological engineering to manage plant and animal distribution in a habitat.
   • Montanus (1671:22) however commented that: “Greenery would abound more if the natives did not burn the areas where they wander”, without at all appreciating the pyroculture that had been practiced by the Tasmanians for millennia as an innovative and successful environmental management strategy...2011, John Paull, “Environmental Management in Tasmania: Better Off Dead?”, in Daniel Niles, Godfrey Baldacchino, editors, Island Futures: Conservation and Development Across the Asia-Pacific Region...
   • Despite the absence of farmed crops (i.e., maize, beans, and squash) and agriculture, it is clear that the western North American landscape was highly managed through fire maintenance (or pyroculture) for thousands of years (e.g., articles in Blackburn and Anderson 1993).2015, Shannon Tushingham, Jelmar W. Eerkens, “Hunter-Gatherer Tabacco Smoking in Ancient North America: Current Chemical Evidence and a Framework for Future Studies”, in Elizabeth Anne Bollwerk...
2. The culture and technology developed through the domestication of fire by early humans.
   • The driving force of pyroculture was a flow of light-giving heat from burning firewood; thus converted solar energy. But for the first time in the history of life, the prime shaping force of an energy-dissipating structure sprang from human ingenuity. Fire masters created technological artefacts...2005, Frank Niele, Energy: Engine of Evolution, page 94
   • Around 1.6 million years ago, the Homo erectus inhabitants there emerged as a “pyro-culture,” using high temperature fire to create stone and bone implements (Gheorghiou & Nash 2007:14; Karlin and Julien 1994:153).2014, Jordan Anthony Burich, "Catching Fire: Toward a Cognitive-Processual Analysis of Cypriot Pyrotechnics and Sacred Imagery During the Bronze Age", thesis submitted to the University of...
3. Slash and burn.
   • Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, traditional pyro-culture did not include the total destruction or removal of trees. Undisturbed tree roots served to bind soil particles together and to prevent sheet erosion. Traditional African farmers recognized that it is easier to restore nutrients to...1991, Sam L. J. Page & Helán E. Page, "Western Hegemony over African Agriculture in Southern Rhodesia and its Continuing Threat to Food Security in Independent Zimbabwe", Agriculture and Human...
   • The colonization by the British initially was a relief to the Shona in that it enabled them to resume their original management practices for farming (pyro-culture) and natural resource use (slash and burn).1999, Wybe Van Halsema, "Endogenous Development of Natural Resource Management in Communal Areas of Southern Zimbabwe: A Case Study Approach", dissertation submitted to the University of South...