[Terrapreta] Pottery Shards

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Lou

This is a very interesting concept! I would suggest that the first 
question should be: Did these people use mushrooms and fungi in their 
Culture?

Obviously, if they ate them as food or Medicine or as drugs, or if they 
used them as a source of poison, then the possibility of them growing 
such fungi would be much higher than if fungi did not play a part in 
their Culture.

One thing that would work against such a theory is that usually, fungi 
require very specific growing conditions, and it is perhaps likely that 
the conditions under which the fungi grew naturally would not be met by 
a Terra Preta bed. However, if a Terra Preta bed was found where pottery 
shards were found at the same level, and with a uniform spacing, then 
this would probably be very strong evidence that the shards were used to 
assist with some form of "planting".

It will be very good to get to the bottom of this possibility. The 
exercise would certainly give a better insight into Terra Preta.

Best wishes,

Kevin

lou gold wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm new to Terra Preta and I'm not a soils scientist,
> just a tree-hugger who thinks that TP might be the
> solution that we've been looking for.
> 
> I have been intrigued by the mystery of the pottery chards
> found in the ADE soils. Yesterday, I discussed this with
> some mushroom experts. Our conversation ended up
> speculating that pottery shards might have been used
> to spread applications of fungi. My friends said that
> baked clay would be an excellent medium for incubating
> mycelia. We speculated that the Amazonian Indians might
> have laid out pottery shards in particularly fertile areas
> in the forest where fungi were growing. Then they
> might have used these "inoculated" pieces of clay to
> "spore bomb" the fields in order to improve productivity.
> 
> Has this possible scenario been discussed or investigated?
> 
> Lou Gold
> 
> My blogs:
> (English) http://lougold.blogspot.com/
> (Portuguese) http://visionshare-pt.blogspot.com/
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/