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Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#101

Post by darkwater »

happosai wrote: post #57
pfdietz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent it's a matter of definition, and whether being caused by humanity means it's bad. After all, the native earthworms would eventually have migrated north and caused similar changes. Is it bad that redwoods are doing very well in the UK?

The problem isn't "because it was caused by humans" per se. Invasive species because of the speed they migrate. Adapting genetically changing environment is the core of life in our planet, but it takes thousands of generations. Humans spread invasive species much faster than the local fauna can adapt.

Very true. But also, if the invasive specie didn't naturally evolved in the foreign place, will it actually last there for 10.000s years? Difficult to know since we won't be there probably but still...

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#102

Post by mr_toad »

larksimian wrote: post #94
BurningFrog wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "immune system lottery" is really why the native Americans were doomed. They could have caught up with the technology etc and stood their ground. But when 90% of the population dies at or before first contact, the remaining 10% doesn't have a chance. Pretty sure this would have beaten the Mayas even if they were at the top of their game. It's pretty wild how world history turned on such a random and completely un…

It's not really random. Disease development in the Old World was a combo of long term urbanisation and animal husbandry. Urbanisation in the New World existed but wasn't as old and obviously there was way less animal husbandry. Also assuming the Bering straight crossing hypothesis humans probably left almost every freaking old world parasite and disease behind by the time they got into the americas. Hundreds of thous…

Many of the diseases that afflicted the old world may have evolved after humans crossed into North America, so there was never any resistance in the New World.

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#103

Post by smartmic »

vintermann wrote: post #79

A thousand years ago doesn't seem that long. In Europe it's not so rare to find that the farm that your bus stop is named after, was continuously worked for 3000 years. In the Middle East they probably think that's short too!

Put another way: There are about 38 generations in one thousand years. So, yes, it doesn't seem that long!

https://howmanygenerations.com/

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#104

Post by mr_toad »

vintermann wrote: post #79

A thousand years ago doesn't seem that long. In Europe it's not so rare to find that the farm that your bus stop is named after, was continuously worked for 3000 years. In the Middle East they probably think that's short too!

In England all the Roman artefacts from 1500 years ago are ruins, while many from only ~500 years later, like the Tower of London are well preserved. Just a few centuries or so of raiding and depredations seperate the two periods of English history.

In some cases Roman architecture was literally dismantled to make something new - the cathedral at St Albans is mostly made from stone taken from Roman buildings.

Things can easily endure that long if well protected, but it’s a long time if they are allowed to fall into ruin (or destroyed).

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#105

Post by mapt »

politelemon wrote: post #10
mapotofu wrote: post #9

> During their excavations, the scientists also found several artifacts, including charcoal and fragments of broken ceramics. These discoveries suggest that the area’s Indigenous farmers may have dumped their household waste and the remnants of fires onto their fields, using them as compost. Samples taken from the mounds suggest the farmers enriched the dirt with soil from nearby wetlands. Exciting - that sounds a lo…

I wouldn't have imagined broken pottery could serve as compost, how is that made possible? It's clay but it retains some properties even after baking?

A lot of these observations about the miraculous soil caretaking of the elder Native Americans are in all likelihood just "Look at this garbage dump, so fertile, such agricultural skill!"

Broken half-fired terra cotta is effectively unusable rock. Terra cotta is semi-disposable, so lots of potsherds are produced per person-year before plastics/glasses/metals are introduced. It's the single most common and best-preserved archeological artifact. Broken pottery was used in place of sand to stabilize the clay in new pottery, but other than that it doesn't have many special qualities.

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#106

Post by mapt »

hinkley wrote: post #80
WalterBright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't contestants on "Alone" do this?

This question is substantially why I stopped watching that show. I think at least a few of them may have trouble locating pure clay where they are dropped but not all of them, every season, for years.

Digging in arctic climates is just difficult. Soils freeze and gel.

Digging in semi-degraded postglacial till filled in with a few conifers (the Great Slave Lake site is largely talus/scree) is not especially productive in terms of clay.

I would love to see them invite Primitive Technology's John Plant on the show. I do understand if North Queensland is more his climate though.

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#107

Post by altacc »

Huxley1 wrote: post #87

I always thought large-scale farming like this only happened under big state systems. But it looks like these communities were able to build something pretty big without that kind of centralized power. It’s also kind of amazing that the fields stayed preserved for a thousand years. Makes me wonder if we’re still underestimating how advanced some of these early farming cultures were.

When foreign cultures were discovered by Europeans the default thinking was to assume they were savages without culture, complex society or technology. That has echoed throughout time and still affects our view of history today. The true savages were the Europeans that preferred to subjugate or kill any non-European population they encountered.

It is only recently that TV & films from the US stopped portraying the stereotypical American Indians as only vaguely more than natural fauna. Until recently US history hardly seems to acknowledge the existence of pre-Colombian towns and cities across the southern states, some with tens of thousands of inhabitants. It didn't fit the European settler narrative that they were taming the wild and when native Americans are mentioned it has been incredibly whitewashed and edited.

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#108

Post by mapt »

maxerickson wrote: post #71
7thaccount wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they problematic though? There were earthworms there before the ice age I think.

There's invasive species that are hugely problematic, converting whole forests from fungal decomposition of leaves to bacterial (changing the soil conditions quite a lot).

I've read this, but I'm not 100% clear on this. I think it's probably entangled with the glaciation / interglacial transition, which happened relatively recently. Earthworms are invasive in Michigan, but so are _trees_ in that timescale. It seems like having a foot thickness of forest duff decomposing slowly is probably not a very ecologically stable situation, and might be a temporary phase as the forests creep northwards and the temperatures creep up. Earthworms are not especially frost-hardy, and need to burrow deep enough to survive frost, which is physically difficult as you go farther north.

Has a drastic change occurred in the forest floors of, say, temperate Georgia?

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#109

Post by toss1 »

Note that this combination is a very synergistic combination of crops to grow together, and is millennia old.

"The Three Sisters planting method, commonly known as companion planting, entails growing corn, beans, and squash together in a mutually beneficial arrangement. It originated in North America around 3000 years ago.

...

Each plant brings unique advantages to the others; Corn serves as a trellis, providing a framework for the beans to grow and wrap around. Beans, acting as a natural fertilizer, add nitrogen to the soil, which benefits the growth of the corn and squash. Squash is typically planted between the corn and beans, and its ample leaves serve as a shield, blocking heat, retaining soil moisture and suppressing weed growth."

[0] https://www.nps.gov/tont/learn/nature/the-three-sisters.htm

Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan

#110

Post by hinkley »

bruce511 wrote: post #82
hinkley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question is substantially why I stopped watching that show. I think at least a few of them may have trouble locating pure clay where they are dropped but not all of them, every season, for years.

I seem to recall one or two doing this. But i suspect the reason they don't is cause they don't need to. They all have a pot already. The benefits of more pots seems low. Conversely the calorie cost seems high (if only just collecting clay and cutting wood to fire it.) On Alone thd priorities are shelter and food. Clay pots seems like a luxury in terms of utility use and energy cost.

Am I wrong that the first few seasons the pot was an option they could choose among others? They upped the kit over time. Early on they had very little.
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