From the text ... 'The historic records from around the world leave no room to doubt that primitive hunting and gathering peoples, as well as ancient farmers and herders, for a number of reasons, frequently and intentionally set fire to almost all the vegetation around them which would burn. Thick forests provide very little of use to any primitive peoples. Having only simple stone tools, there was no lumbering industry and large trees provided nothing useful to most Stone Age people except ash to fertilize their fields.The main barrier to understanding the role of ancient fires on vegetation is basically the same problem faced by all science. The science of ecology must overcome the unscientific beliefs of the general population in the same way that astronomers have replaced popular ideas about the stars with careful observations, theories and measurements.As the ecologist overcomes the difficulties imposed on all science by old-fashioned religion and entrenched folkways, he almost inevitably acquires a very low opinion of all ancient beliefs. ...Yet the usual scientific procedures are not always sufficient. The solutions to some problems can be aided by extending the time perspective....There were many [ecologists] who did have an historical perspective, nonetheless, and lengthened their time span to include conditions of the area under study as they were when first occupied, that is, when first occupied by white European settlers....Few ecologists have been tempted to inquire into aboriginal habits and their possible influence upon the landscape extending back for millenia....The error in such neglect results in the failure to evaluate fire as a force of human culture influencing vegetation which is many times greater than the natural force of lightning.Aborigines set fire to vegetation for a number of reasons which vary in their importance depending on other geographic conditions. In flat temperate zones with a regular dry period fires were used to drive game, to improve pasture for wild game, to improve visibility by removing brush and trees, to facilitate travel and approach to game and to kill insects, rodents and reptiles for protection and for food. In tropical forests fire is an indispensable adjunct to agriculture for primitive horticulturists. Fire removed the forest and provided fertilizer. Often the trees had to be cut or killed by girdling before they could be burned. Even in the tropics if there is regularly short dry period, fire can maintain grassland at the expense of trees.In some areas like the West Coast of the United States and Canada, fire aided the production of nuts, berries, wild tobacco, wild seeds and wild tubers. Finally fire was occasionally used by aborigines in warfare.'