Abstract

The wetlands of the Pinelands National Reserve in New Jersey provide valuable geographic clues concerning the region's cold, dry, and windy Ice Age past. Studying the relationships between humans and unusual landforms known locally as spungs, cripples, blue holes, and savannahs yields important insight into the effects of 200,000 years of global climate change, and how regional environmental dynamics relate to cultural ecology.

Spungs are enclosed wetland basins, created by deflation under cold, non-glacial (i.e., periglacial) conditions. These features served as oasis-like watering places for wildlife and ambulant peoples over a period of 12,000 years. Cripples are short, broad, and damp valleys lacking modern stream incision. Surface wash over frozen ground and wind action were the primary geomorphic agents responsible for shaping these valleys. Blue holes are deep, strong springs, of some antiquity, and are found in present-day river channels or, occasionally, on the broad paleochannels bordering watercourses. Savannahs are flat stretches of sedgey, grassy, and sparsely wooded meadow occupying abandoned river channels.

The debate about the periglacial/permafrost origins of Pine Barrens landforms has been spirited and controversial. Recent contributions to paleoenvironmental reconstruction in the region provide strong support for the interpretation that cold, nonglacial processes left distinctive marks on the region's landscapes. Unusual "periglacial" wetland features were linked by ancient trails, woven together in a geographic tapestry of interactions between society and nature. In the absence of a long-term scientific monitoring program, historical records and local knowledge were used to document recent changes in these wetland environments, which are drying up. This process threatens life-supporting systems that are fundamental elements in this internationally important ecological region. It is hoped that a wider understanding of the Pinelands National Reserve's natural and human history spurs greater efforts to protect near-surface and surficial water resources. After all, the shallow aquifers are the lifeblood of the Pine Barrens.