[Terrapreta] The Science of Terra Preta Formation

[Michael Bailes]

I am re-posting this as it seems it may not have got to the list

*An Amazonian pot from an Auction catalogue.*
 Quote:
  "Unusual Tullawohara Indian vertical double pot with rawhide strip
reinforcing. The Tullawohara are located in the Amazon drainage of Brazil."
- [8fli-105] - Floyd Lyerla collection. -
Indian artifacts to auction Nov. 2 - Kull &
Supica<http://www.armsbid.com/8Indian.htm>



Extract from Discover Magazine
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/black-gold-of-the-amazon/article_view?b_start:int=2&-C=

In the afternoon, Neves takes me to the Hatahara site, about eight miles
from Donna Stella, which contains traces of a more sedentary way of life.
Here pottery shards litter the ground. At one of the site's two excavations,
the broken bits stick out from the earthen walls of a large square pit. The
layers of protruding pottery are so tight and thick they look almost like
wall coverings.

The Hatahara site contains traces of four separate occupations by farmers.
The people of the Açutuba phase, who are thought to have come from the
Caribbean coast, may have been the first to settle the area, living in
villages up to five acres in size, each supporting 100 to 200 people. Neves
believes that they lived on fish, wild meats, palms, fruits, and manioc, a
root that can grow in poorer soils year-round. Although this early culture
had only rudimentary agricultural practices, Neves says, the plant and
animal refuse they were leaving provided the substrate for future terra
preta soils.

Helena Lima, a Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo, is trying to
pinpoint when and how this soil was used to support greater populations in
the Amazon Basin. She sees a stark difference between the Açutuba phase,
from 300 B.C. to A.D. 400, and the later Manacapuru phase, from A.D. 400 to
900. "The Manacapuru were the first people who really changed the soil," she
says.

The terra preta soils at Hatahara and the other sites are made from a
mixture of plant refuse and animal and fish bones, along with large
quantities of charcoal that were deposited after settlers used stone axes
and slow-burning fires to clear forest.

Such smoldering fires produced more charcoal than ash. The charcoal, soot,
and other carbon remains (collectively called biochar) retained nutrients,
particularly potassium and phosphorus, that are limited in tropical soils.

The resulting improvement in soil fertility may have allowed the land to
support a larger, more stable crop-based population, although studies of
fossilized pollen have not yet revealed the specific plants they cultivated.

The next phase of settlement, the Paredão, occurred from about A.D. 700 to
1200. Neves suspects that the Paredão were outsiders from the south. The
occupation is peaceful, though, and the Paredão and the Manacapuru lived and
traded with each other.

The Paredão exploited terra preta soils even more than their
predecessors.While the initial settlers in this area may have created
the dark soils by
accident, William Woods, director of environmental studies at the University
of Kansas, says that "at some point they recognize their importance and
start to promote them." Over time, the villages of the Paredão become
larger, denser, and surrounded by agricultural fields. Populations grow into
the thousands at sites ranging from 5 to 40 acres. The lack of fortification
strongly suggests that the groups lived in peace.

But around 1200, the Guarita people from the east threatened to attack, and
the Paredão built defensive structures. This phase lasted into the time of
European occupation. Over the same period, the Paredão vanished. The Guarita
apparently moved in from areas near the mouth of the lower Amazon, which
have even more terra preta soils than the Paredão, and brought with them
wilder, multicolored styles of pottery.

"They are like the barbarians attacking the Romans," Neves speculates. He
suspects that the newcomers may also have had a valuable possession—corn.
This new, more nutritious staple requires better soils, and it is not
unreasonable to suspect that the Guarita drove the Paredão out to take over
their valuable cropland, built on terra preta.

Analysis of buried human remains suggests that the inhabitants of all four
occupations were robust—a well-being that extended even after death. In the
site's remains, Anne Rapp and her husband, Claide Moraes, both students at
the University of São Paulo, find evidence that hints at ceremonial
procedures, priests, and perhaps a cottage industry of funerary artisans as
well.

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[image: urn-250.jpg]A pot from the pre-Columbian Guarita culture.


(Sweet corn is a man made plant.
it cannot reproduce without human intervention)
-- 

On 07/04/2008, Kurt Treutlein <rukurt at westnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> lou gold wrote:
> > No rocks in most of Amazonia as well.
> >
>
> Nor in the lower Fly River area of Papua New Guinea
>
>
> Kurt
>
>
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>



-- 
Michael the Archangel
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
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