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Post by paquebot on Dec 8, 2010 20:11:56 GMT -5
It's not my fault that you refuse to do any research on it whatsoever for fear of being found wrong. One needs to search for just one word, Yanomami. They no longer control as much of the Amazon as in pre-Colombian times but have managed to survive quite well without adapting a European way of living. Martin Your claim was that they eat the dead, as a matter of routine. cannibalism is often the result of famine. From what i know it was mainly ritualistic in south america. One thing is certain though, your still jumping to conclusions. Where is your proof this is the remains in terra preta? why doesnt modern slash and burn produce anything even remotely similar to terra preta, or large areas with mass build up of charcoal? How DID they feed themselves in south america at the population levels the recent discoveries suggest they had? Which clearly implies some type of issue happened that ended that culture, heck this might have been when the limited cannibalism started.... everything we know points to the end of a culture, that we know almost nothing of, the survivors became the tribes of today in the area. your telling us, they never realized their charcoal refuse (which isnt there in quantity in the modern slash and burn) was so fertile? Yet traveled all around farming new areas. thats real hard to believe by itself. you also mention a tribe here that didnt farm historically until recently. From what we know of them.... your also ignoring the VASTLY different cultures from tribe to tribe..... I wonder why none of the major researchers came to the conclusions you did? You also refuse to research the Amazon people for some reason. The Yanomami are the remains of about 8,000 years of culture in the Amazon. You also refuse to do the simple act of clicking on the Wikipedia link which has what is now the determination of how the terra preta mounds were formed. Charcoal, bones, pottery shards, etc. all point to the remains of homes. That is especially so when the shabonos were large enough to have as many as 400 residents. Imagine a single structure big enough to house that many people and then have it crumble after a few years. Imagine the meals prepared and food consumed by 400 people during that time. Imagine how rich the soil would be around the outside perimeter of the structure from 400 people who never had to wait in line to use a toilet. If you look into the cultures of the past and present Amazon indigenous people, the dead were cremated and eaten. That is still the normal for them. Look it up. Again, it's Yanomami. Then you will get an idea of what has gone on in the Amazon region since the Stone Age. Martin |
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Post by castanea on Dec 8, 2010 20:32:39 GMT -5
This is a fascinating topic to discuss and those discussions can encompass a wide range of interesting theories, but it is an undeniable FACT that no one now living knows how the Amazonian terra preta was formed and I have yet to see a theory that explains even the simplest aspects of its formations. One thing however is very clear - it seems very unlikely that it was an accident. One other thing that is very clear is that we are now learning ancient civilizations had far more sophisticated agricultural methodologies than we suspected even 30 years ago.
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Post by paquebot on Dec 8, 2010 21:00:29 GMT -5
uh, I read the wiki link and many others. which is exactly why I know its no where near as simple as you describe. where did the slow burn charcoal come from? covering an area 2 times larger then britain? slash and burn didnt create this, or it would today as well. slash and burn has been used since europeans got here, yet all terra preta mounds pre date european contact. Your stance doesnt remotely mirror reality. Ive studied those peoples, enough to know each culture is different. gee i wonder why those studying this never realized how simple it was..... Its hilarious being talked down to by someone clearly as ignorant as yourself. go for it though martin, it suits you well.... The mounds certainly should predate European contact since the Amazonian culture has been going on for up to 8,000 years. Nobody knows the reason for abandonment. It is known that tribes nearest European settlements were wiped or absorbed into the new population. It is known that others retreated away from the invaders. It's known that the Yanomami and their types were once in vast numbers but have been forced into an ever-shrinking "national park". The area in which they are presently in may have been deemed unsuitable for them 500 years ago. Even now, the area where they presently are may have only been their homes for a few hundreds years as they are pushed deeper and deeper until they can go no further. The charcoal from slash and burn has been covered by a number of reliable authorities including National Geographic. Their finding is that it would be better called slash and char and is even advocated for modern times rather than total reduction to ash. Their description of the material is "dirt, charcoal, pottery, human excrement, and other waste." Anywhere else in the world, that would be a trash heap. Are you also disputing the cannibalistic nature of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon? The one thing common about all of the lost people there is the near total lack of human remains. They were the ultimate recyclers and continue yet to this day. They cremate their dead and consume what bones that remain. Martin |
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Post by paquebot on Dec 8, 2010 22:58:13 GMT -5
Don't believe that I ever stated that the bulk of the bones were human. It's simply a known fact that cremation has been the rule for disposal of the dead and that takes place within the shabono. Small bones would be reduced to charcoal with only the larger ones remaining for consumption. It's also a fact that the terra preta areas are surrounded by terra mulata. The main difference in the two is that only terra preta contains human artifacts. Both contain biochar which would have come from burning the area around the settlement. The Yanomami are a perfect example of that. You've seen some of the air photos of various size shabonos and they are in a clearing. Now the Yanomami either rebuild on the same site or move to create another clearing. When the first European explorers came, they told of many settlements and a vast population. Dense populations can't simply pack up and move elsewhere. They remain in one place for as long as the area can support them. And as I pointed out with a 400-person shabono, there is a lot of waste generated just from the meals for so many. Then add rapidly deteriorating building material which must be replaced about every other year. I doubt if it were taken apart piece by piece but more than likely set on fire. There's even more charcoal to be added to the cooking and cremation pits. I saw one estimate of 2,500 years for one. A lot can accumulate in that time.
If the terra preta areas were actually farmed can not be proved. As is known, terra preta areas are surrounded by terra mulata. Terra mulata areas contain no artifacts related to human habitation. If the terra preta areas were used for farming, the population were living in neither areas. The one thing that can't be hidden is where the people lived due to what they leave behind. Only the terra preta has the typical signs of human habitation.
From many discussions on forums for almost 12 years, there usually is someone asking why the Amazon population failed after thousands of years of success. No matter how one looks at it, they simply ran out of people.
Not only that, the Amazon isn't the only place in the world where terra preta exists. It's in a number of places in Africa and nearly the same composition.
Martin
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Post by paquebot on Dec 8, 2010 23:18:05 GMT -5
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Post by grunt on Dec 8, 2010 23:48:30 GMT -5
I'm not going to get into this one too deeply, but my first major at UBC was anthropology. Cannibalism has seldom been practiced beyond a ritual level by any peoples, and particularly not on members of their own tribe. The most overt practice of cannibalism was in the Caribbean and is why the islands are named as they are.
As for the lack of population, contact with Orellana and his men in 1542 left behind many strains of disease that the locals had no resistance to, and wiped out the majority of the populations in the area. No subsequent explorer/exploiters were able to discover anything like the populations he described on his return to Spain.
They ran out of people because disease killed them much faster than the birth rate could replace them. At least in this instance, the introduction of disease to remove the native population was done by accident.
I've read several theories about the formations of the terra preta and the terraforming of the areas around it, and I don't think any of them have it totally correct. That the terraforming was done deliberately is a no brainer. That the terraformed area was apparently not being used when the Spanish re-visited the area is also a no brainer = their society had been shit-kicked to pieces by disease for more than a generation. That there was any social cohesion at all is a miracle in its own right.
The unique combinations of micro-organisms that are present in terra preta almost definitely accumulated by accident. That they are self replicating, if enough of a base is left to work from is not a unique event in nature. Many insect colonies depend on similar symbiotic relationships, and inoculate new colonies from old. I'm not sure where the reference to it spreading comes from = I brought up the point that terra preta (in the original terra preta thread) is not a blanket occurrence anywhere, and wondered why not, because it does reproduce itself. Terra preta is still only found in "islands", and by now should be almost a solid area. There is more going on there than we are aware of. With all of our magical science, we still cannot reproduce from scratch, even a square meter of terra preta. I'm not sure if anyone has tried a medium to large scale inoculation of soil with terra preta soil to see if it can be culteured, so to speak(although I would be surprised if it hasn't been done yet). I personally think that terra preta was formed by intent, but can not back that up with references. I am reasonably sure that the natives were observant enough to notice that things grew a lot better where it was, and figured out how to make them do so on purpose. Burning off grass cover in fallor spring has been done by almost every farming culture in history, and for the same reason it gives a shot of potassium to the soil. Slash and burn does the same thing. Short term gains, both of them.
I'll terminate this before I start to rant or babble.
Cheers
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 9, 2010 8:27:10 GMT -5
To go off topic for a moment: I think the cannibalism thing (outside of extreme circumstances like widespread famine) is contravorsial with some experts insisting on genes that suggest at some point in prehistory that it was a widespread practice at least ritually and others pointing to the flaws in these various studies. Also, 'experts' commonly point out that cannibalism is one of the arsenal of defamation of various cultures. But I digress!
Dan wrote: "I'm not sure if anyone has tried a medium to large scale inoculation of soil with terra preta soil to see if it can be cultured, so to speak (although I would be surprised if it hasn't been done yet)."
In a bunker somewhere, someone is reading this thread and giggling - their terra preta plot stewing in the background...
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Post by mnjrutherford on Dec 9, 2010 12:01:24 GMT -5
What I recall of the cannibalism issue is that it was a religious aspect of many equatorial cultures. Eating a particular organ, such as brain, heart, or liver; was done by family members of the deceased as a demonstration of honor. This was part of their ancestor worship and consisted of each person consuming a bite or two of the prescribed organ. I never read anything of a people group consuming human flesh as a matter of basic sustenance. It is thought to have been highly ritualized.
If this is true, then it would not be a far fetched notion that the remainder of the corpse would have not been considered of any ceremonial value and therefore put into the trash heap.
I really can't say precisely where my premise comes from because it is a collection of thoughts and ideas and memories. I've read magazines, books, papers, etc., on the subject for about 40 years. Not intensively, just here and there. So, I am not claiming any in-depth absolute knowledge.
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Post by paquebot on Dec 9, 2010 19:08:14 GMT -5
The terra preta CAN be reproduced but not in our lifetimes. One just needs to recycle everything needed to support life for a thousand years and just make one big pile of it. "Dirt, charcoal, pottery, human excrement, and other waste." A ten year old pile of animal dung can become quite alive with organisms that will survive a long time. A thousand year old pile human waste can do it about a hundred times better. Everyone is able to determine the ingredients which made terra preta but it can not be duplicated.
It is true that following explorers did not find either the people or their cities. Neither were where they were supposed to be found. The people were either dead or moved away. Their homes were entirely disintegrated due to the natures of the building material used. All that remained from where those settlements were mounds of what we now call terra preta. No matter how glossy one may paint the picture, it is nothing more than the results of a lengthy human settlement in a single location. It is the same situation wherever terra preta exists in other parts of the world. As fantastic as it may sound, they are all merely long-term ruins of a previous civilization. Little difference than only a few hundred years ago when humans emptied their toilet pots by simply tossing the contents out of a window. "Garde loo!"
Oh, the practice of cremating and consuming the dead assures that every bit of the dead person remains there. What isn't left as ashes and charcoal is taken in by those who eat it. Since the human digestive system is non-stop from end to end, what goes in must come out. And what comes out also returns to the same place.
Martin
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Post by steev on Dec 9, 2010 20:22:53 GMT -5
Just a smaller closed loop than people are used to thinking about. All things considered, a far more rational way of dealing with our place in the world, than the currently fashionable human exceptionalism. So much better to become chow than to be pickled, canned, and root-cellared (embalmed, casketed, and buried in a vault, but you knew that).
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Post by paquebot on Dec 9, 2010 21:39:16 GMT -5
dark earth is in europe as well. In the other cases though, its more in relation to the size of a refuse pile. It implies to me, and apparently most who study it, that they likely saw the fertility of said refuse piles, so they made a bunch of them. My understanding is many were not piles but filled in trenches, from what little I know of these peoples, it seems unlikely they would work that hard with digging sticks to bury pot shards, and charcoal, and plant matter..... In the case with the amazon, it is covering up to 10 percent of the amazon. Not a chance it imo, was simple burning of old housing, which by the way, all the peoples Ive read of that live in such housing simply abandon them, not burn them. They may have at one point, but we have no proof of it. It certainly seemed as if you were saying the bulk of the bones were human, you kept repeating they were cannibals, and had few game animals. Then questioned where they got such material from, as if there wasnt another source of bone besides human. You seem to have a very compartmentalized view. Ive watched documentaries, on many peoples there, have a few books, and have read many articles. Many times Ive come across the idea, their homes disappear into the woods without a trace... Heck that is simply how the rain forest works. They were building out of wood and leaves. What you call nether regions, easily could of been homes for any number of people. Specifically if terra preta was purposeful, and pottery, and animals bones and the like were taken there. You cant prove they burned their habitations either, yet you persist. they dont do so today, and the forest swallows it up. among the people of the area, were some KNOWN to purposefully plant specific useful plants. So the terra mulatta, and terra preta, could of each served different uses. One for more hungry crops, the other for more passive stuff. You have no more idea then anyone else. Notice how your the only one who seems to have this all figured out? Still waiting for any amount of backing you have, that is DISTINCTIVE. that puts what your saying, over the level of opinion. not even a well thought out one from my perspective. It wasnt even that long ago, VERY large, and long mounds, that were clearly manmade stuck out, enough for people to realize it was purposeful roads, and growing sites. Not the thing a nomadic culture builds. The soil there without terra preta nearly demands constant movement. Not saying you couldnt be right, but it doesnt seem to fit the scope of what we know. Settlements disappear in months to years, so their building sites not being found, is nearly meaningless, when they are known to decompose so rapidly, and if terra preta was purposeful, then any tiny amount of animal bones and pottery was taken to the fields anyway..... we are talking jungle here. some of the largest earthworks known to man, werent found until modern slash and burn people cleared areas, let alone a pile of turtle shell next to a home 2000 years old that faded into the forest in a year or two. I am NOT persisting that they burned their villages but offering that as an option between replacing it piece by piece. It's already been established here that the Amazon peoples still replace their shabonos every year or so due to weather and insects. They are nothing more than stick buildings with fronds for roof. Settlements like that do indeed have a short life and become part of the soil again. But concentrations of human excrement do not vanish. Human activity can be well documented and terra preta is certainly becoming well documented. Not much different than your 2,000 year old pile of turtle shells. The facts about the human body contribution to terra preta seems to be something not to be believed. Even thinking about cannibalism is virtually a sin. Not so among what's left of the indigenous people of the Amazon. Every part of a person's body is to remain WTHIN the village, not outside. (Some are trying to get back blood samples which were taken years ago for scientific study.) You can find out, in detail, how they are still doing it. Study it and you'll see that each death is one more step toward terra preta. www.suite101.com/content/death-customs-of-cashinahua-and-yanomamoe-people-a102270 Martin |
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Post by synergy on Dec 9, 2010 22:52:46 GMT -5
I think maybe more than one of you is correct, like permaculture of the time may have been to use everything even cremated remains and feces, bones , ashes, charcoal distinguished after cooking or use for smoking . If my house was made of fibrous plant material and it started to mildew with humidity and infest with insects, well burning it and retaining the open area for either rebuilding or farming may be a better alternative to dealing with erradicating insects and molds and rotating the compost there after would then make it a nice garden plot. There is also to consider the phenomena of felled wood actually smouldering under ground slowly burning for periods of time like a peat bog fire ? Perhaps people took advantage of this ? People die, and epidemics arise and bodies need to be burnt perhaps on piers, neighbouring tribes attack and kill and burn the structures. Maybe there was some of cannabalism or sacrifice but I cannot imagine a society where it was practiced heavily as most societies need their family and community to live. Natives here in BC were known to use burning and cutting to fell and utilize wood for boat building , why not in the amazon too? Trees are struck by lightening and burn to the ground . Slash and burn of forest may have been employed to clear area for villages or agricultural areas? Maybe the role of mildew is not taken into account enough in how the materials may have transormed to soils? Maybe more than one thing contributed to the terra pretta type soil , sort of a permacultural phenomena.
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Post by paquebot on Dec 10, 2010 12:14:20 GMT -5
I've been merely explaining how the elements of terra preta came to be. All of that is well-known. The scientific conclusion is as follows. "Because of their elevated charcoal content and the common presence of pottery remains, it is now widely accepted that these soils accreted near living quarters as residues from food preparation, cooking fires, animal and fish bones, broken pottery, etc. accumulated. The intentionality of the formation of Terra preta has not been demonstrated, rather if formed under kitchen middens." That pretty much explains it all.
Martin
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Post by PapaVic on Dec 10, 2010 15:16:46 GMT -5
Something else that I find strongly supports Martin's argument is this picture: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShabanoYanomami.jpgIf one assumes the Yanomami culture to reflect the pre-Columbian cultures that left us terra preta (TP) and terra mulatta (TM), and I know that is an assumption rather than a proven fact ... but bear with me simply for the mental picture of their possible village layout ... it's very easy to see how a central mound of TP could form and then be surrounded by a peripheral zone of TM. Right? And to take it a bit further, if the pre-Columbian culture had the same or similar communal living, cooking, waste disposal, funereal, and dwelling construction/reconstruction habits as the Yanomami culture, then one can readily see how the cleared, compacted, continually accending mound of TP would accumulate within the perimeter of the village circle ... not necessarily as material managed specifically for the purpose of agriculture since there are no plantings in the area within the living quarters or domestic plaza of the villiage circle. Furthermore, the charcoal content in the soil within the village circle would be charcoal from cooking, funereal, and reconstruction activity, as already has been discussed. Also look at the construction of the living quarters where the shed roofs comprise semi-circles meeting at two "gate houses" so that if a fire (whether accidental or part of the normal reconstruction of the village) were to start, it could be managed as a controlled burn while the residents could move around the outside of the conflaguration, or even within the central plaza, as the fire cleansed the site. And then look in the picture how there is a distinct green boundary area around the entire village that appears to be younger forest growth or managed agriculture. The whole thing makes perfect sense. Your thoughts? pv |
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Post by nuts on Dec 10, 2010 18:05:07 GMT -5
Something else that I find strongly supports Martin's argument is this picture: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShabanoYanomami.jpgIf one assumes the Yanomami culture to reflect the pre-Columbian cultures that left us terra preta (TP) and terra mulatta (TM), and I know that is an assumption rather than a proven fact ... but bear with me simply for the mental picture of their possible village layout ... it's very easy to see how a central mound of TP could form and then be surrounded by a peripheral zone of TM. Right? And to take it a bit further, if the pre-Columbian culture had the same or similar communal living, cooking, waste disposal, funereal, and dwelling construction/reconstruction habits as the Yanomami culture, then one can readily see how the cleared, compacted, continually accending mound of TP would accumulate within the perimeter of the village circle ... not necessarily as material managed specifically for the purpose of agriculture since there are no plantings in the area within the living quarters or domestic plaza of the villiage circle. Furthermore, the charcoal content in the soil within the village circle would be charcoal from cooking, funereal, and reconstruction activity, as already has been discussed. Also look at the construction of the living quarters where the shed roofs comprise semi-circles meeting at two "gate houses" so that if a fire (whether accidental or part of the normal reconstruction of the village) were to start, it could be managed as a controlled burn while the residents could move around the outside of the conflaguration, or even within the central plaza, as the fire cleansed the site. And then look in the picture how there is a distinct green boundary area around the entire village that appears to be younger forest growth or managed agriculture. The whole thing makes perfect sense. Your thoughts? pv Yes of course, It just needs to be checked out in the real world ;D You had some good links in the terra preta thread. some good investigation.TP indeed contains more human artefacts like poteryfragments. Many agricultural practices include bringing the waste in the field. And some of the writers in one of your link states that it's unlikely just a dump, But the soil is builded as the result of agricultural practice The real question is:do those incivilised cannibals have enough intelligence to find that out? |
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