Humans, as the creation myth suggests, are co-creators who were made to impact nature by modifying it through their activities. This is depicted in the material culture that rests in national parks, museums and other reservoirs of cultural heritage. As people live in an area, rather than simply making do with the conditions of the place and what it supplies to them, they adapt to it by producing new forms of material culture through technology that eventually makes the place change. This shows how humans are more than just consumers of nature who preserve and perpetuate its conditions, but producers of it who modify it to suit their interests. As suggested by Neumann (150), the impact man has on earth presents a struggle of cultures and technologies with natives of areas having to struggle counter theirs with that of those who newly settle there. It can also be suggested that as the existing material culture of natives competes with that of settlers, it occasions both preservation and production. The two mingle to produce a new form of culture in through activities and technology that reflect the presence of both settlers and natives. This intertwines production and conservation that shows the power man has to recast the nature into new forms (Neumann 164). All these are captured in the history of modification that is found in Rocky Mountain National Park. It presents the changing face of the lands it covers based on the different periods of settlement. From the natives, settlers and all the way to the modern times after the foundation of USA, the impact of man on the environment and nature can be traced by the collections in its repositories.
Nature as it is today manifests the ingenuity of man in being its refiners from old to new forms. Neumann in the text “Ways of Seeing Africa” depicts the fact that national parks store the changing human heritage due to the activities of man (Neumann 152). That man in his mental and physical abilities has been reworking nature by refusing to settle in it and simply consumed it. They refused to content with the world as they found it. The wilderness that humans found themselves in appeared never to be enough in meeting their utility and perhaps aesthetic needs. They, therefore, engage in activities that lead to the production of entirely new conditions of nature. This is a fact as from what is collected archeologically; Rocky Mountain lands were shrubby in their very first conditions. The rocks covered every place of it such that life could have been difficult if the natives could have accepted it as it was (Frank 34). However, in view of human creative powers in their minds and the strength of their physique, the existence of the shrubs and the rocks that had spread to cover all the lands now only stand for a historical fact. The rocks have been moved, and shrubs cleared. This is a depiction of man reworking nature as the natives of the area found it unsatisfactory in its initial conditions. This shows that the natives in the area were consuming nature by using the shrubs for their building, and rocks to manufacture tools. Natives were, therefore, making nature work for them by redacting it to suit their habitat demands. Their way of adapting to nature was by remaking it to reflect their desired conditions.
The interaction of settlers and natives also reflects the fact that new people in a new environment occasion a new state of natural being. The natives of the lands of Rocky Mountain national park did not have a similar perception of what the land held with the new settlers from other continents. Many of the settlers who came from such continents as Europe and Asia where agriculture had already been practiced brought more changes to the area. They had invented new and advanced technologies that could help at this. With their settlement in the area, they changed the reliance of humans on nature as was the case with natives (Frank 123). Most of the natives hunted and gathered for livelihood. However, the settlers set in with new means of livelihood that produced a new form of nature. This was through fishing and cultivating. The existence of granaries and other forms of food stores are evidence of this fact that dates times coincident with the settler years. They also made new shelters that were no longer made of shrubs and this also changed the view of the rocks. However, this did not render native practices extinct. It seems that natives also continued with their traditional practices, and this shows a sought of contest between the practices of natives and settlers. This interaction seems to have led to a new form of nature that carried both aspects of the settlers and the natives. This is because some shelters that have both features of stone and wood show that there was an exchange that changed the nature of the place. There then, after the settlers, came constant change at Rocky Mountains due to advanced use of material that turned the lands into a site of commercial and agricultural innovation (Frank 125). The park holds materials that depict serial change of nature from the native to the settler periods that run into the modern times. They hold future significance as well.
Neumann also pointed to the fact that preservation and production are not opposite. This is evident at Rocky Mountain since production of subsequent technologies and forms of nature hinged on the preexisting ones (Neumann 158). Humans, using their power to re-create, use initial products to produce new forms of the same that may be advanced. A study of nature as it reflects the nature as it was at first, and hence separation of the two is implausible. Furthermore, production and preservation are also linked since they are motivated by the same factor. The entry of settlers who occasioned a new form of production based on agriculture led to a change in the state of nature at Rocky Mountains. The change threatened the traditional form of existence of the natives. They had to stand and ensure that their heritage, technology and material culture does not die away due to the contest of cultures. The interest of natives to protect their material culture and passed it on is what created preservation of it. The settlers, on their hand, were viewing it in a different form and wanted to ensure that the land is cultivated in a new way different from that of the settlers. This means that production and preservation in the context of Rocky Mountains National park are concomitant with one creating need for the development of the other (Frank 167). This is the reason as to why the park has evidence of the development, modification and changing trend of the state of nature from the time preceding settlers to present. All the aspects of consumption, production and preservations are embodied in the installation of the park with some of the artifacts and materials lying in situ.
On the whole, the history of America is captured in the influence the settlers brought on the nature of America. They occasioned a new form of existence due to a changed perception of the habitat. While the natives relied more on nature, with slow modification of it, settlers changed the lands of America by initiating new forms of production. They started cultivating which changed the traditional ways of production of the natives. This shift necessitated that natives strive to ensure that the superior material culture of the settlers does not conquer theirs. This contest of material cultures is what has ensured that at Rocky Mountains national park, the culture of settlers is found just as much as vestiges of the threatened native one do. Through the understanding of this, man is depicted a conqueror who can cause a modification of the environment through his activities. The nature of Rocky Mountains as depicted by the repositories of material collections points to the fact that nature is in the hands of man to create and recreate. As he consumes it, so he produces. Neumann argues in favor of the fact that preservation and production occur in tandem as they are caused by similar factors. What causes the need for production necessitates preservation.
Works Cited
Neumann, Roderick P. "Ways of Seeing Africa: Colonial Recasting ofAfrican Society and Landscape In serengeti National Park." (1995): 149-169.
Frank, Jerry J. Making Rocky Mountain National Park: The Environmental History of an American Treasure. , 2013.
