The Ecological Indian cover

The Ecological Indian

by Shepard Krech

"While many Americans are attached to a romantic, idealized view of the human relation to nature in North America prior to European contact, anthropologist Shepard Krech III attempts to examine what characterized actual Native American beliefs and actions. Native Americans had a vast and impressive store of knowledge about the natural world but, like everyone else, couldn't always foresee the consequences of their acts and didn't always act the way they believed they should. Nor were their beliefs always perfectly adaptive to changing circumstances."--BOOK JACKET. "The Ecological Indian addresses such fascinating questions as: Were Pleistocene-era humans responsible for the extinction of large mammals like the mastodon? Did the Hohokam of Arizona destroy their society by overirrigating and ultimately oversalinating their crops? What role did Native Americans play in the near-extinctions of the deer, the beaver, and the buffalo? How did Native Americans use fire? Was the natural "Eden" that awed the first European visitors a feature of native "environmentalism" or just of very low population density?"--BOOK JACKET.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?