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Western North America

Vegetation dynamics in the western United States: modes of response to climatic fluctuations

  • Chapter
Vegetation history

Part of the book series: Handbook of vegetation science ((HAVS,volume 7))

Abstract

The western United States is a mountainous land with strong climatic gradients and vegetation ranging from subtropical desert-scrub to tundra. The region has a dynamic past, especially over the last 20,000 years, when large lake-systems developed and then desiccated to the few modern remnants in the now-arid interior, and alpine glaciers and ice-caps advanced and retreated. Humans appeared on the scene as the glaciers and large lakes waned, to witness (or perhaps cause) the extinction of camels, horses, mammoths, ground-sloths and other elements of the magnificent Pleistocene mammal fauna. Archaeological data illustrate the continual struggle of human societies over the last 10,000 years to cope with the harsh and continually changing western climate. Long-term regional periods of warmth and aridity during this period apparently forced prehistoric migrations and played a major rôle in the development of Southwestern pueblo societies (Cordell, 1984).

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Authors
  1. Robert S. Thompson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botony, Science Laboratories, University of Durham, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, England

    B. Huntley

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 02912-1846, USA

    T. Webb III

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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Thompson, R.S. (1988). Western North America. In: Huntley, B., Webb, T. (eds) Vegetation history. Handbook of vegetation science, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3081-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3081-0_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7884-9

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