[Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

[Robert Klein]

I personally have unbridled admiration for the achievements of the Indians, that we are slowly uncovering.  They created several separate food production regimes with a very limited tool kit.  I describe it as stone age, but that is to get over the message that their daily cutting tools were stone.  They collected a massive amount of gold that may still represent the largest single hoard in the global gold reserve.  It took them several thousands of years to do this and through terra preta, we now  know how they fed themselves.

My interpretation of the extensive archaeological record in both Americas and particularly the Amazon suggests that we should be recognizing a population of me serious portion of 100,000,000.  They all died out over a two hundred year span mostly out of sight.  I think that the dying began much earlier than suspected, coinciding with the archaeological  evidence of contraction over a five hundred year span.  The cause was still old world pathogens brought by seamen on a one way trip..

----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailes <michaelangelica at gmail.com>
To: Robert Klein <arclein at yahoo.com>
Cc: mark at ludlow.com; terra pretta group <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 3:26:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

I seem to get an undercurrent of "How could dumb Indians have worked this out" though out a lot of TP discussions

America was far more populous than Europe in 1400. They also had huge botanic gardens dwarfing anything Europeans had (The first Botanic garden in Salerno Italy in c15 was pathetic by comparison).
The American were into plant breeding and crossing.
 Corn (on the cob) could not exist-or reproduce- without them.
 They had over 200 varieties of Chilli plants.

How come it is so difficult to accept that 1,000 years ago people knew more about their environment and ecology than we do now?
We are such clutzes.  We have Union carbide, Monsanto and Dow Corp. to lead the charge into ignorance.

The annihilation our diseases gave American natives was unprecedented in human history.
Even the European plague killed only 30% of the population.
The American Indian annihilation was 90% ++ over and over again.

As someone has already mentioned their immune systems where different.

 (Guarding against parasites -malaria?- rather than bacteria.
Perhaps we could even find a cure for malaria in the Amazon?)

Another 2cents worth
m





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