The Once and Future Northwest Prairie:How Human Activity Shaped—and is Shaping—a Rare Ecosystem

摘要

The mown lawns of suburbia attest to a human love of open, grassy places. Cultural anthropologists speculate that lawns have a direct link to the great savannahs of Africa, which we left ages ago to colonize the globe. Grasslands are said to have fostered the development of our upright posture and large brains. These grasslands, you could say, are what made us human.