Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
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Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#2Tangentially 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.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#3It’s amazing how smart our ancestors were and creative and observant based on amateur science and gardening skills. The amount of planning and organization this must have taken would require a large coordinated effort.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#4The unanswered questions are intriguing. I wonder if the crops grew better because they were suited to the climate, but those crops aren’t around anymore? Could they have cultivated varieties of corn over say 1000 years that grew well at that latitude and in the relative cold? Or could there have been warmer micro climates?
Maybe not. Even corn specifically developed for my area in British Columbia needs a very warm summer to do well.
I wonder if it’s possible that they used corn less as a food crop and more as a scaffolding crop in the 3 sisters system.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#5The unanswered questions are intriguing. I wonder if the crops grew better because they were suited to the climate, but those crops aren’t around anymore? Could they have cultivated varieties of corn over say 1000 years that grew well at that latitude and in the relative cold? Or could there have been warmer micro climates? Maybe not. Even corn specifically developed for my area in British Columbia needs a very warm…
> Or could there have been warmer micro climates?
Microclimates? The whole world was warmer. Remember when the Vikings settled Greenland? That was 1000 years ago.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#6The unanswered questions are intriguing. I wonder if the crops grew better because they were suited to the climate, but those crops aren’t around anymore? Could they have cultivated varieties of corn over say 1000 years that grew well at that latitude and in the relative cold? Or could there have been warmer micro climates? Maybe not. Even corn specifically developed for my area in British Columbia needs a very warm…
> Or could there have been warmer micro climates? Microclimates? The whole world was warmer. Remember when the Vikings settled Greenland? That was 1000 years ago.
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Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#7The unanswered questions are intriguing. I wonder if the crops grew better because they were suited to the climate, but those crops aren’t around anymore? Could they have cultivated varieties of corn over say 1000 years that grew well at that latitude and in the relative cold? Or could there have been warmer micro climates? Maybe not. Even corn specifically developed for my area in British Columbia needs a very warm…
> Or could there have been warmer micro climates? Microclimates? The whole world was warmer. Remember when the Vikings settled Greenland? That was 1000 years ago.
According to graphs I’m seeing, it looks like it was warmer for a period, but then cooler until now. They would have been farming here during a cool period. It’s entirely possible that they established the farm thousands of years ago when it was warm (and warm means about the same temperatures as today), then kept farming throughout the ‘little ice age’ despite crops yielding less. Perhaps that’s what triggered such a huge expansion of the farm land. Or, perhaps there were far more people there than we think. Lots of questions
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#8I'm surprised that anything remains. If the area is fertile I'd expect it to be farmland now.
Clearly it was logged for a while, and perhaps they were expecting to cut it down again at some point.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#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 lot like Terra preta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
No doubt this practice was used widely across the Americas. The natives were tremendously skilled with plants. This is another step to uncovering some of the knowledge lost. I hope they can find more of these same features.
Re: Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
#10> 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?