Beavers Helped Shape the Lives of Ancient Humans

HUMANS RELIED ON BEAVERS FOR FOOD AND THEIR FURS, BUT THESE TOOTHY RODENTS MAY HAVE PLAYED A LARGER ROLE IN OUR ANCIENT PAST.

BEAVERS ARE nature’s architects. Active molders of the environment, they cut down trees and modify woodlands, building dams that transform rivers and valleys into rich wetlands. And while these large rodents have long been known to be sources of food and furs to humans, scientists recently posed a new question: How has beavers’ role as shapers of the natural landscape informed their relationship with humans?

Examining 116 archaeological sites across northern Europe, the research team tracked patterns of abundance of Eurasian beavers ( Castor ber), as well as other mammals and sh, in a 2023 study in e Holocene. By tracing these patterns as far back as 9,000 years ago, to the Mesolithic era, the researchers found that beaver-modi ed landscapes created more opportunities for early humans to forage and obtain food.

In short, in creating wetlands, beavers increased numbers of freshwater sh, like pike ( Esox lucius), and the mammal diversity in the area. is makes it likely that beavers facilitated human settlement in these areas, the researchers argue. As glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, humans may have depended on beavers to construct environments they could then move into and exploit.

THAT EXPLOITATION wasn’t an extractive, one-way street, however. While later European settlers in the 19th century managed to drive beavers to the brink of extinction in only a few centuries, beaver remains at some of these archaeological sites persisted for over 5,000 years. Such long-term beaver-human relationships suggest the human and nonhuman animals had learned to coexist.

ere’s also evidence, the team contends, that these early people recognized the vital role beavers played — and treated them as socially signi cant. e presence of tools and jewelry carved from beaver teeth and jaws is evidence that beavers were important to humans.

Attention to how beavers “inspired human behavior and culture,” reveals how humans “respected beavers as neighbors,” says Shumon Hussain, an archaeologist at the University of Cologne and the study’s lead author.

THE SHIFT in how researchers are investigating beavers at these sites is subtle but signi cant. By changing their line of questioning from a humancentered focus to an animal-centered one, the scientists are making room to contemplate the ecosystem as a network of interdependent relationships that extend beyond predator-prey dynamics.

Removing the spotlight from humans creates space to ask how these animal engineers might have shaped our ancestors, too. By gnawing away at the old view that nonhuman animals simply serve as food, such work can counter anthropogenic views of the past.

Today, beaver-human relationships are strained at best. As conservationists increasingly recognize beavers as crucial to maintaining healthy wetlands, rewilding programs are eagerly reintroducing the web-footed architects to their old habitats. But not everyone is thrilled. Beavers’ capacity for disrupting human-modi ed landscapes means they are sometimes viewed as pests, capable of causing serious damage to rivers and human infrastructure alike.

Still, the new study serves as a reminder that negotiations between humans and beavers sharing the same landscape are nothing new — and that productive, long-term relationships can exist, much as they have before.

Researchers found that beaver-modified landscapes created more opportunities for early humans to forage and obtain food.

IN , Kathy Kleiner was asleep in her bed at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University when serial killer Ted Bundy entered through an unlocked door. A er attacking two of her sorority sisters, Bundy found the door to Kathy’s room also unlocked.

Kathy survived the attack and is one of only a few Bundy survivors. When we began writing her memoir, A Light in the Dark: Surviving More an Ted Bundy, she said she wanted to weave in as many stories about the other victims as possible.

For about two years, I researched the more than 30 women and girls Bundy killed. By the time I started compiling their biographies for an appendix, I o en felt stressed, saddened, and a bit on edge. ere were certain victims who I thought about daily.

Later, I learned I had empathy overload, an experience that social scientists are nding can happen in both people’s professional and their personal lives.

EMPATHY IS typically considered how a person understands and relates to others. Some scientists have suggested empathy evolved as a neurobiological process so that a person would be compelled to create and keep social bonds. ese social bonds would motivate the person to get along with other group members, as well as strive for their children’s survival.

But a person can also experience too much empathy, or empathy overload — a type of compassion fatigue that occurs when they are negatively impacted a er providing emotional support to others.

Although researchers agree on the concept of compassion fatigue, there isn’t one set de nition. In general, it involves secondary trauma in which a person’s empathy and concern for another causes them to have ongoing, negative emotional and physical symptoms. People in helping professions, such as counselors, nurses, paramedics, physicians, psychologists, social workers, or teachers are more at risk for compassion fatigue.

Researchers typically consider compassion fatigue as distinct from burnout. Burnout is the frustration, powerlessness, and disillusionment a person might feel when they can’t help others in a meaningful way. A nurse, for example, might feel burnout because their hospital is understa ed and they are too rushed to help patients the way they want. Similarly, a nurse might experience burnout because they care for patients who are part of a bigger problem that they don’t have the power to solve, such as the opioid epidemic. By contrast, a nurse experiencing compassion fatigue might internalize the su ering of individual patients.

EACH PERSON can have a di erent experience with compassion fatigue or display di erent symptoms. Some people might experience an emotional numbness. Others might have physical symptoms such as appetite changes, fatigue, headaches, or a weakened immune system.

For me, I responded to the Bundy victim research with repressive behaviors. As a journalist, I didn’t feel I was allowed to … well, feel. It was my job to report the story accurately, not to re ect on how the story made me react. In response, I looked for outlets where I could let my emotions ow. I cried, for example, at Hallmark Christmas movies — not because they were sappy, but because I thought there was a sadness to lms like Finding Father Christmas.

But as a journalist, I was also able to end my intensive research process and submit the book. My daily, constant inquiry into the Bundy victims concluded. Many people in helping professions, on the other hand, aren’t able to simply end their exposure to secondary trauma.

For those who feel they have empathy overload, self-care practices and treating themselves with intentional kindness can help to reduce their symptoms. Other people might bene t from talk therapy — which researchers have found is the most e ective approach to treating trauma.