[Terrapreta] The Reason for Pottery Shards in Terra Preta.

[Greg and April]

Interspaced between the *********** .

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: lou gold 
  To: Greg and April 
  Cc: Terra Preta 
  Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:25
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] The Reason for Pottery Shards in Terra Preta. Re: Char and compost ( was Char made made under pressurized conditions? )


  greg,

  no problem.

  i remain intrigued the the images of the clear layers, alternating pottery and soil. I believe this way is the Bolivia segment of the documentary. I speculate that it had to do with the architecture of mound-building. I have no seen similar pics from the central Amazon  -- lots of pottery but no layering.

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  I to think that the layers may be a important clue and along with the layers, the amount of pottery and the total depth of the TP in a given area.    In the show, they are specificaly talking about the normal 'yellow' Amazon soil and how the TP compares to it ( if you have downloaded a copy of the show, it is just after the 30 minute mark where they show an exavated pit with the pottery ).

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  yes, the studies say clay pots for cooking/food storage. But I have seen any speculation about human wastes. Perhaps old pots? Something else? What?

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  Yes, I to have seen speculation about human waste, but, do we have any sciantific evidance of such?


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  personally, my questions keep returning to the overall ecological balance more than to the challenge of knowing how to make terra preta. i'm sure that they did not approach things as we "moderns" might analyze and problem-solve. theirs' was a different mind-set -- quite sophisticated ecologically -- that was able to create harmony between large population density and the forest. i want to know about this. i speculate that their ways might include even more "miracles" beyond terra preta.

  for example, can you imagine long-term settlements of house-to-house for 20 or 30 miles along a tropical river and NO diseases? that's mind-boggling! what else did these people know?

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  The highest distance I have seen is 15 miles, but, I think 1 important fact is being missed in your theory.
  In the book 1491, point's out something that you are probably missing.

  Prior to the arrival of European's, the biggest threat to the human body in the American tropics was not from disease, but from parasites.    

  This was because in the Americas, there were no large animals that had close contact with humans.    While in Europe, humans not only had close contact with animals they actually lived with them in the same building sometimes - it was this close contact that caused diseases to pass from animal to man and mutate in the process.

  The European persons body had an immune system geared to fight diseases because that was the biggest problem, while the American native faced less danger from disease and more danger from parasites, so it was geared to fight parasites - this is why European disease decimated the people of North, Central and South America, the human body of the American peoples were not used to fighting disease and the close housing would ensure that almost everyone would catch it once it started.

  So if looked at in this light, 15, 20, 30 miles of homes along the rivers, with no disease ( least wise what we would consider disease ) is quite possable - OTOH, major parasites issues, is quite possable, and most likely.


  Greg H.

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