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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

#31

Post by bastawhiz »

pfdietz wrote: post #28
sologoub wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to make a planting bed in any settlement that’s more than say 100 years old on a site that was continuously lived on, you are guaranteed to come across at least some shards of glass, pots, plates, etc. Even if the spot was never explicitly a trash mound. Things break, people usually try to pick them up and put in trash, but (especially in grass) miss pieces. When kids break stuff you often don’t want them…

I was also going to say, earthworms will slowly bury objects (Darwin wrote on this), but that region didn't have earthworms at the time.

TIL that earthworms in the American northeast are largely invasive species. That's very surprising to me

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

#32

Post by politelemon »

brookst wrote: post #24
politelemon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Pottery of the time was low-fired and did not generally reach vitrification, and it was not glazed with a silica-based glaze that would seal it. So over time this pottery would absorb water. And especially low-fired bits could totally break down. Source: amateur ceramicist, and I have first-hand experience with cone 6 clay (vitrifies at 1200c) bisc-fired to cone 04 (1060c) and crumbling to bits when left in water too…

Thanks this was educational for me.

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

#34

Post by TacticalCoder »

38 wrote: post #33
folli wrote: post #2

Tangentially related: I'm trying to make LiDAR data in Switzerland more accessible, see https://github.com/r-follador/delta-relief There's some interesting examples in the Readme.

How is this related at all?

TFA literally says archaeologists discovered the crop(s) using LIDAR and GP links to a project using LIDAR to map lands.

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

#35

Post by sfjailbird »

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?

You're all overthinking it. They dumped their kitchen waste in the fields, and it happened to contain broken pottery too. It's the same for other archeological sites all over, many are waste dumps that contain interesting objects.

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

#36

Post by acdha »

mapotofu wrote: post #22
ashoeafoot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several indicators in the south american jungles of civilisation going through booms and busts. If they would have been significant ahead, they would have colonized europe or china.

That natives did not colonize Europe or China does not mean they were not highly skilled with plants. What kind of argument are you making?

I think they were just engaging in time-honored speculation about how different history could’ve been had a few historical accidents changed. For example, the Mayan civilization collapsed about 500 years before the Spanish showed up due to the worst drought in something like 7k years, so people have speculated about what Mesoamerica might have looked like when contact was made of those millions of people hadn’t died. Repeat for having draft animals, not losing the immune system lottery so badly, etc. Given their martial traditions it’s very plausible that in slightly different scenarios the arriving Conquistadors would’ve been killed or captured and lead to return expeditions.

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

#38

Post by 999900000999 »

brookst wrote: post #24
politelemon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Pottery of the time was low-fired and did not generally reach vitrification, and it was not glazed with a silica-based glaze that would seal it. So over time this pottery would absorb water. And especially low-fired bits could totally break down. Source: amateur ceramicist, and I have first-hand experience with cone 6 clay (vitrifies at 1200c) bisc-fired to cone 04 (1060c) and crumbling to bits when left in water too…

If you were in the woods( pick a spot) and had whatever food/medicines you needed could you build pottery from scratch.

Electricity is fine and all, but I imagine the basics of civilization could be replicated by a few good craftsmen(people)

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

#39

Post by hinkley »

brookst wrote: post #24
politelemon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Pottery of the time was low-fired and did not generally reach vitrification, and it was not glazed with a silica-based glaze that would seal it. So over time this pottery would absorb water. And especially low-fired bits could totally break down. Source: amateur ceramicist, and I have first-hand experience with cone 6 clay (vitrifies at 1200c) bisc-fired to cone 04 (1060c) and crumbling to bits when left in water too…

There’s a type of low fired clay used in bonsai soil and a harder one used in hydroponics. Good for retaining moisture and they don’t swell and shrink with water.

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

#40

Post by hinkley »

999900000999 wrote: post #38
brookst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pottery of the time was low-fired and did not generally reach vitrification, and it was not glazed with a silica-based glaze that would seal it. So over time this pottery would absorb water. And especially low-fired bits could totally break down. Source: amateur ceramicist, and I have first-hand experience with cone 6 clay (vitrifies at 1200c) bisc-fired to cone 04 (1060c) and crumbling to bits when left in water too…

If you were in the woods( pick a spot) and had whatever food/medicines you needed could you build pottery from scratch. Electricity is fine and all, but I imagine the basics of civilization could be replicated by a few good craftsmen(people)

Primitive Technology on YouTube does this repeatedly.

You make a hole or find a piece of slate for processing, you mine clay from a stream bed, and then you make your first pot as a tool for moving water, the second pot for making food, and before or after the second pot you make clay bricks to build a kiln to high fire other things more efficiently - less fuel and more multitasking of other tasks.

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