[Terrapreta] Pottery Shards and Terra Preta

[lou gold]

Have you seen the BBC video? There's no evidence of pottery that degrades
quickly. Indeed, it shows the contrary -- 100s of years of sitting in the
soils without degrading. If you haven't seen it, please take a look.

On Dec 10, 2007 7:09 PM, Robert Klein <arclein at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi lou
>
> As I described in earlier postings, I have every reason to suspect that
> the terra preta biochar was manufactured by the building of tightly packed
> corn stover stacks with earthen walls created by the brick like root balls.
> All very feasible within the  labor availability.
>
> Check my blog for postings on this in June and July
>
> http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com
>
> In order to start and maintain the burn it is necessary to carry a charge
> of coals onto the top of the stack and to tip in into the center and then
> cover same.  The only way available would be to use a sun dried clay platter
> that was unlikely to be fired and was also likely made from poor grades of
> clay.  This easily explains the buildup of 'pottery ' in the soils.  It
> would degrade fairly quickly since it would be very weak.
>
> The coals would drive a chimney through the stack and maintain a burn that
> would largely consume the produced volatiles in the chimney.  The plate
> would be placed on top of the coals and be covered with earth to complete
> the shell.  Similar but cruder methods are used today with wood to produce
> charcoal in Africa.  There the packing is poor but the wood cutting is very
> efficient thanks to modern tools.
>
>
> arclein
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com>
> To: Kevin Chisholm <kchisholm at ca.inter.net>
> Cc: Terrapreta preta <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 12:19:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Pottery Shards and Terra Preta
>
> Kevin,
>
> I don't know if you watched the BBC video, "The Secret of El Dorado"?
> It shows the pottery dramatically, in layers deep into the soil.
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2809044795781727003&q=secret+of+el+dorado&total=21&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
>
> The pottery shards are suggestive to me. I speculate that the earth kilns
> used for making the pottery (loaded with lots of broken pieces from pottery
> making) became middens for human and organic wastes. Later as the whole
> "stew" ripen into TP, it could have been transfered to the fields and also
> be useful structurally for creating raised beds and preventing erosion under
> the heavy rains.
>
> What do you think?
>
> lou
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 10, 2007 5:09 PM, Kevin Chisholm <kchisholm at ca.inter.net> wrote:
>
> > Some people hold that pottery shards are an important aspect to the
> > working of Terra Preta, (TP) but others feel that the presence of
> > pottery shards in Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) is incidental to the
> > performance of the TP.
> >
> > Is it possible that the Researchers looked for the presence of pottery
> > shards as a way of proving human involvement, and did most of their work
> > on TP soils that had a human involvement?
> >
> > Pottery was a big art of Brazilian Indian Culture, but other Ancient
> > Cultures did not have, or made very little use, of pottery. Are tehre
> > any "black earth" deposits outside "pottery cultures" that are
> > acknowledged as being the equivalent to TP?
> >
> > Is it possible that there are many man made TP soils to which no shards
> > were added?
> >
> > What is the nature of the shards found in TP? Are they like a crushed
> > grog, where it is obvious that effort had been expended breaking the
> > pottery to relatively small pieces, OR, is shard size and shape such
> > that it suggests broken pottery items were simply discarded?
> >
> > Are the shards of a nature in size and completeness that they could be
> > re-assembled to reveal the size and shape of the original pottery items?
> >
> > Is there any evidence to suggest that pottery shards were indeed added
> > on purpose, in contrast to merely being disposed of an non-functional
> > items?
> >
> > Is there any evidence to show that TP WITH pottery shards  works better
> > than TP WITHOUT shards?
> >
> > Is there any evidence that shards of one range of sizes and composition
> > and degree of firing give better results in TP than another?
> >
> > Can anyone think of other reasons why pottery shards would be a valuable
> >
> > addition to TP?
> >
> > Can anyone think of reasons why pottery shards would not make any
> > difference?
> >
> > Any facts, comments and observations would be both enlightening and
> > appreciated.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Kevin
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> http://lougold.blogspot.com/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/sets/
>
>
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-- 
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