[Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery etc

[Sean K. Barry]

Hello All,

Is anyone referring to the pictures of Terra Preta soil when they talk about pottery shards being incorporated into it?  From what I have seen of the actual amount of pottery shards in the soil, it does not appear accidental or coincidental, rather more deliberate.  The native people were not stupid.  I think you would have to be kind of stupid if you kept accidently busting olla pumpkin pots or blowing up retorts into the soil to a depth of 6 feet!

Making fired pottery maybe was even known of then.  Look at that picture!  That clay material was put there, don't you think?  Why is the question, not was it an accident or a garbage pile 6' deep.  It the ancient Amazon people actually made enough pottery and busted it or had it broken accidentally at this kind of rate, you would think that some much more of it would have survived.  Or, you would think that they must have been really bad at pottery making, if they busted this much of it accidentally.  Nobody really thinks that people then didn't learn from their mistakes too, does anyone?

To me, it looks like they put clay (or pottery) into the soil intentionally.  We just don't know why.

SKB


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nina Bowman<mailto:nmbowman at alltel.net> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 7:50 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery etc


  Regarding the pottery shards found in terra preta. I think they may have used the pottery as olla jars, which were sunk into the ground and water was poured into them to water the plants. Roots found their way into the pottery and the jars would break, thus needing to obtain another one. This would account for so many shards found at the sites.
   I found the following link on the usage of olla jars which have been used for centuries.

  http://pathtofreedom.com/peddlerswagon/garden/water%20savers/olla/olla-pumpkin.shtml<http://pathtofreedom.com/peddlerswagon/garden/water%20savers/olla/olla-pumpkin.shtml>

  Nina Bowman
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