[Terrapreta] e: More on clay/pottery etc

[Randy Black]

One facet of the pottery I think someone needs to address is that is
this more or less pottery than at other sites that had been used for
similar time periods? Seems to me that the kinds and types of pottery
and how durable they were should also be addressed because if Terra
Preta was made using their organic wastes/garbage dumps/latrine wastes
than the pottery may just be accidental. As one post recently pointed
out, ancient peoples didn't waste a lot of energy and if they found that
using burnt garbage/latrine waste made better soil than they most likely
spread it around with minimal effort for maximum results.
Randy Black

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: More on clay/pottery etc (Michael Bailes)
   2. Re: More on clay/pottery etc (Sean K. Barry)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 08:26:04 +1000
From: "Michael Bailes" <michaelangelica at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery etc
To: terrapreta <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Message-ID:
	<7dcba7be0705221526x40cc44a1gb7ac603066a00d30 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

See-the TP list library
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/actaminerology



Pottery is found in high concentrations
in Terra Preta soils
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://people.cornell.edu/page
s/jmg225/Assets/images/pottery%2520hand.jpg&imgrefurl=http://people.corn
ell.edu/pages/jmg225/research.html&h=188&w=250&sz=38&hl=en&start=9&sig2=
u3CDm4grRIgT_DG5vrqghg&tbnid=3B1w_iQx6qBhcM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=111&ei=j2BTRoG
aA5_0gQPOktjyDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTerra%2Bpreta%2Bpottery%26gbv%3D2%26s
vnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozil
la:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

FROM The Hypography parent thread

> It seems other rocks apart from pottery may have been added to the
soil as
> well? (I am having trouble getting my head around article-translated
form
> Portugese!) What is cauixi and cariap??
>
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=...pt=sci_arttext<http://www.scielo.
br/scielo.php?pid=S0044-59672004000200004&script=sci_arttext>
>
> I have also been researching "horticultural clay". The Terra preta
soils
> were full of pottery shards. Horticultural clay seems to be used
mainly in
> hydroponic systems. It does have a fine porous structure and might
provide a
> good home for bacteria or it might trap fertiliser. I think it could
be some
> sort of catalyst to the whole tera preta dynamic.
>
> I guess (hypothesise) two reasons:
> 1. The clay somehow acts as a catalyst for the whole microbiological
> thing.
> and/or
> 2. It allows bacteria in the soil to breathe. You can still buy in
some
> places terracotta balls to plant orchids in. I note some American
Orchid
> mixes use charcoal and clay
>

*www.css.cornell.edu/.../images/research/tp3.html<http://www.css.cornell
.edu/faculty/thies/lab/images/research/tp3.html>

Zeolite seems to do many of the same things charcoal is claimed to do in
soil
http://www.zeolite.com.au/products/zeolite.html
http://www.cmzeolites.com.au/
http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/mineralogy/zeolite.html
*[image: http://www.3dchem.com/imagesofmolecules/H-ZSM-5.jpg]*
www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=86*

Actually Amazonian Indians moved to Greece, when the Spaniards came, and
continued their tradition of breaking plates :)
[image: http://www.limaniblue.co.za/pix/plates.jpg]

m
"May those who love us, love us;
and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll
know
them by their limping."
-Irish Blessing
On 23/05/07, lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I'm going to jump in again with a question. Does anyone know
> whether or not the clay pottery was fired? I previously passed on
> speculation that the shards might have been inoculated with
> mycelia and used to transfer fungus from the undisturbed forest soils.
>
> It's an out of the box suggestion. Perhaps there's a soil scientist
> or experimental gardener who might want to comment?
>
>
> Lou
>
>
>
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 15:45:02 -0500
From: "Sean K. Barry" <sean.barry at juno.com>
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] More on clay/pottery etc
To: <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>,	"Nina Bowman"
	<nmbowman at alltel.net>
Message-ID: <AABDFGXTCAS4ZNFA at smtp04.nyc.untd.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

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-p
umpkin.shtml<http://pathtofreedom.com/peddlerswagon/garden/water%20saver
s/olla/olla-pumpkin.shtml>

  Nina Bowman
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  Terrapreta mailing list
  Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
 
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