[Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery

[Tom Miles]

I picked through middens (kitchen waste) on rescue digs with an archeologist
friend in England some 37 years ago. I remember pockets of char but nothing
like terra preta. We were looking for pottery and not paying too much
attention to the char. I wonder if they burned their kitchen waste. I worked
in area of the Lacandon Maya in Chiapas, Mexico, a couple of year later.
Agricultural patterns were of interest to those of us concerned with
protecting soil and the forest ecology but we weren't looking at pottery.
Tony Hemenway provides a brief overview of agricultural patterns in the
region from a permaculturists perspective in "Seeing the Garden in the
Jungle" http://www.patternliteracy.com/beyondwilderness.html 

Tom Miles

-----Original Message-----
From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Randy Black
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:20 PM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery



-----Original Message-----
I think the reason for ceramic pieces in Terra Preta is most likely that
the Amazonian Indians spread their garbage pits around when they moved
their village and started another field. And of course in the garbage
along with all the organic wastes were broken pots. In Chapter 23 of
Amazoinan Dark Earths it describes the size and shape of the Terra Preta
fields and the fact that wood dwellings in the Amazon have a life of 2-4
years and that probably when they moved dwellings they used the old
cleared village for a new field. As Steiner described in a recent
posting we can presume that the Indians fired their garbage pits to keep
bugs, animals, and disease away found that this made good dirt and they
may have found that the ceramic pieces helped by providing aeration. One
way to confirm some of this would be to date the long Terra Preta fields
and see if different parts are of differing ages.

Randy Black