[Terrapreta] Serendipity

[Daniel S]

I am new to this forum, so may have missed a lot of previous discussion
about the 'development' of the techniques for creating terra preta. It seems
that some contributors are suggesting a conscious process of R&D to develop
terra preta. However, it is more than likely, in my opinion, that the
discovery, if there was one, was a case of serendipity. It would seem that
these soils have developed in close proximity to agrarian communities, where
thousands of tons of cooking fire residues were dumped over an extended
period of time.

I live in a relatively dry environment (Inland Australia). Here wood usually
burns to ash and leaves a relatively small amount of residue. In damp
Amazonian climates wood may have charred naturally because it was initially
wet when thrown on the fire, causing a tendency to char rather than burn to
ash.Residue from fires in such areas would most likely have been discarded
on mounds close to the village in a moist, microbe friendly environment
allowing further biological processes to act on the charcoal residues. It is
likely that the mounds of fire residue were as high as someone could
comfortably throw the ashes and charcoal. These small mounds would have
connected with each other to create a low raised platform on which a fresh
mounding process could begin and create a new, higher level raised platform 
and then perhaps another layer and another.

Considering that the main mode of transport was walking, it is not
unreasonable to expect that gardens were close to the village as were the
middens and mounds where scraps and fire residues were discarded.

Perhaps someone noticed that the soil where ashes had been dumped were more
productive and a conscious move was made to exploit those soils and perhaps
copy the process of developing them.


Anyway

Cheers All
 
Daniel S
E-mail: dcs44 at bigpond.net.au

 
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