[Terrapreta] Earthen Kilns Conjecture

[Sean K. Barry]

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Hi Greg,
 
You can buy wood sticks at Home Depot called "Fat Wood".  When lit, it continues to burn like a candle for as least an hour, a 6" pencil-sized stick of it.  Its like a "punk".  THat's what we called the camel dung covered little stick that you used to light fire crackers when we were kids.  I suspect that the Indios knew about wood, fire, and that they new how to girdle and burn a huge tree down to the ground, from the bottom up.  There are no rocks, nor metal for tools in the rainforest.  But, there is wood for charcoal, wood for dugout (burned out) canoes.
 
I think you are right, Greg, that they had charcoal around them daily, and likely used it as a tool to a large extent, why not soil remediation in addition to cooking fuel?  The soil remediation use may have occurred to them after the beneficial effects of charcoal-in-soil had been observed in areas where they had charcoal sitting around on the ground for cooking.
 
Danny Day, from EPRIDA claims that they had a worker who observed large, wonderfully flavored, "beets" growing in charcoal piles left on soil down there in Georgia.
 
 
 
Regards,
 
SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
  To: Robert Klein<mailto:arclein at yahoo.com> 
  Cc: terra pretta group<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 7:14 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Earthen Kilns Conjecture


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    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Robert Klein<mailto:arclein at yahoo.com> 
    To: Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
    Cc: terra pretta group<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
    Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 23:53
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Earthen Kilns Conjecture
    SNIP

    The charcoal volumes are too low to for this to hold.  The only reason they wold ever make chacoal as a separate product is as a convenient fuel, and even then it would likely be used for firing pottery.

    Why only for pottery?
     
    Indiginious people's on most contentents used charcoal for fuel.
     
    Follow my line of reasioning for a bit.
     
    1)    We have historical accounts of miles of rivers where homes were packed right next to each other, with large cities in the background.    That's not alot of room to supply alot of fuel wood.
     
    2)    Wood rots real fast in the tropics, charcoal does not.
     
    3)    Wood for fuel is heavy for the energy it produces, while charcoal is lighter and has more BTU's than wood does.
     
     
    What if like in other countries ( even today ), they produced large volumes of charcoal on the outskirts of the cities, for sale and distribution within the cities?    
     
    A single person can easily carry a weeks worth of fuel for cooking the meal for a family in a couple of baskets or even a conue of any real size.    It will not rot, or have other issues with the water while waiting to be used.
     
    See what I'm thinking of?
     
    If this is the case, then the smalls and fines would be everywhere.
     
     
    One last thing on the charcoal for fuel thought.    There are some species of wood in South America, that are known to the natives and being good to make into charcoal - just how long they have known that is up to debate, but they do have the knowlage of them.

    SNIP

    > 

    The problem with the theory of earthen kilns, is that such earthen kilns would also fire them selves into a ceramic - yet no indication of such a structure has been found.    There is a man that builds ceramic structures, by building structures out of adobe bricks, then fires the entire building, making a monolithic ceramic structure.

    This is an important question.  Biochar temperatures are running at around 300 to 400 degrees for most of the stack.  high temperatures would only exist within the chimney were the earthen ware cap would also exist.  An important question is to determine the firing temperature of the so called pottery in the soils.



    Yes and No.
    There are two things that govern ceramic hardness, tempature and time, and an increase in either one can to a degree make up for the other.    In fact there is one style that I heard of but can't name off hand, it actualy goes through several low tempature firings, but when done it's almost as hard as if it went through a single firing at a higher tempature - and because it is fired at a low tempature, it's less inclined to crack when in the kiln, if there was still some moisture in it.
     
     
    Greg H.
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