In America, dendrochronologists, scientists who study growth rings in the trunks of trees and link them to calendar years, began to notice a startling phenomenon with trees across the country in the 1980s: they contained scars that lightning fires simply could not explain. In many places, there were scars in the parts of tree rings that correspond with seasons when thunderstorms rarely or never occur. At study sites across the East, as many as 80 per cent of scars dated to this season. What was the source of these fires? Some scientists now point to Native Americans. At the link in our bio, read how tree rings challenged the myth of American wilderness. - @newyorker