Cataloging Information
Cultural
Fire & Traditional Knowledge
This guide was developed to help identify Culturally Peeled Trees. Culturally Peeled Trees are a specific type of Culturally Modified Tree. The term is used to describe the mostly pre-reservation practice by aboriginal or native people of 'peeling,' or removing, the bark/cambium layer of a tree for a variety of procurement and symbolic purposes. The bark peel results in a very distinctive scar and heal-over which is distinguishable from other natural and human-caused injuries to the tree. Using tree-ring analysis, these scars can be crossdated, providing us with an invaluable record of the past including very precise dates -even seasonality- about when people were present on the land.
Citation
Access this Document
Treesearch
publication access with no paywall
Check to see if this document is available for free in the USDA Forest Service Treesearch collection of publications. The collection includes peer reviewed publications in scientific journals, books, conference proceedings, and reports produced by Forest Service employees, as well as science synthesis publications and other products from Forest Service Research Stations.