• Moore, Elizabeth H.
  Holt Research Forest, University of Maine, Arrowsic, Maine
  
• Witham, Jack W
  Holt Research Forest, University of Maine, Arrowsic, Maine
  

The particular environmental qualities of the lower Kennebec River region have long influenced the human beings who have inhabited this coastal area of present-day Maine. Aboriginal people lived in and passed through the lower Kennebec area for more than one hundred centuries before Europeans arrived; their seasonal migrations brought inland groups to the sea for fish and shellfish, and an Abenaki trade route existed along the Sasanoa and Black Rivers for seven thousand years (see figure 1). In 1605, one of the earliest Europeans to visit the region, English explorer George Waymouth, sailed up the Kennebec; he reported seeing land fit for cattle, high timber for masts, and streams for driving mills. Two years later, other Englishmen established the Popham Colony as the first European settlement in the region. Located at the river's mouth, the colony survived only about twelve months; but other Europeans would return within a few years to take advantage of the region's waters and landscape, with their fish, forest, and meadows. These features affected the region's development in interconnected cycles and remain significant economic resources today. The lower Kennebec region's rich and varied land use history continues to show the influences of its distinctive ecosystems.

The history of land use as a dynamic element of ecosystem change in coastal New England must be studied no only at a regional or landscape level but at the level of specific properties as well. The Holt Research Forest in Maine's lower Kennebec valley provides an excellent example of the reciprocal relationship between environmental features and historical land uses. After first reviewing the need for research that incorporates land use history as a dynamic element of ecosystem change, this paper describes the Holt Research Forest  and the factors that lead to this inquiry, then reports the results of the land use history study and comments on its implications for future research.