[Terrapreta] On pottery in Terra preta

[rukurt at westnet.com.au]

Michael Bailes wrote:
> http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0044-59672004000200004&script=sci_arttext 
>
>
An interesting bit of information. It tells us that the pottery in TP 
tended to contain rock powder of a kind that a lot of organic growers 
use to re-mineralise their land. Potters commonly add sand  to clay to 
improve it's behaviour, but here they *might* have found that the 
practice they used improved the fertility of the soil in which the 
broken pottery was added. Additionally it tells us that use of the 
pottery to cook fish and other anmal foods also impregnated it with 
phosphates, which also would have improved fertility. Subsequent to 
inclusion of these pottery shards in the soil the "wee beasties" would 
have gone to work on the pottery to extract the nutrients contained 
therein and these would have become available to the plants. It makes 
sense to *me*.

I'm not so sure about the use of pottery shards to innoculate the soil 
with fungus spores.

The article also showed the kind of pottery involved, mainly bowls and 
plates--- there goes my idea of "chimeneas".

Kurt