Holocene history of cedar and native Indian cultures of the north american pacific coast

A comparison of paleobotanical records with archeological and ethnographic evidence from the Pacific Northwest shows a strong correlation between the expansion of Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) in coastal forests between 5000 and 2500 years ago and the evolution of a massive woodworking technology by native cultures. This suggests that an important component of cultural development was environmentally constrained until large cedar trees, the basic resource for canoe-building and plank-house construction, had become available in late Holocene time.     

Native cellulose: a composite of two distinct crystalline forms

Multiplicities in the resonances of chemically equivalent carbons, which appear in the solid-state carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of native celluloses, have been examined at high resolution. The patterns of variation are consistent with the existence of two distinct crystalline forms. One form is dominant in bacterial and algal celluloses, whereas the other is dominant in celluloses from higher plants.