Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Fields where Native Americans farmed a thousand years ago discovered in Michigan
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/massive-field-where-native-american-farmers-grew-corn-beans-and-squash-1000-years-ago-discovered-in-michigan-180986758/
127 comments
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 long.
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 long.
to add some context, in modern gardening things like crushed vermiculite are a common soil amendment. being a porous absorbent mineral, it serves the same purpose.
Not to mention terracotta is a very common material for potted houseplants and container gardening. Terracotta is low-fired, non-vitreous and porous to water, giving it nice breathability and water absorption characteristics.
There are also long-necked terracotta bottles (called ollas) you can buy (or DIY) which you bury in the ground. You fill the bottle with water and the terracotta itself acts as a wick, providing a slow release continuous underground water source for plants to access.
There are also long-necked terracotta bottles (called ollas) you can buy (or DIY) which you bury in the ground. You fill the bottle with water and the terracotta itself acts as a wick, providing a slow release continuous underground water source for plants to access.
I have some reproduction native American pottery from the upper great plains. They're pretty neat as they have round bottoms. Just holding it feels like given enough time it would break down and melt for sure. It feels very porous.
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.
Thanks this was educational for me.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is the correct answer. Alone is not really a how to live in the woods show, it's a managed starvation show. The contestants are limited to about a 1 sq mile area which may or may not have a good source of clay. They purposely set them out just a few weeks before winter so they do not have a long time to prep. Conserving and replenishing calories is the name of the game.
Humanity didn’t really take off until we figured out how to make use of inedible calories though. Making lots of tea and thin soups in the winter should have been a target for many of them.
One person did quite well finding wild onions but as I recall got some stomach distress from them. Raw onion doesn’t agree with people when you aren’t eating much else. But those greens would have made soup for days.
One person did quite well finding wild onions but as I recall got some stomach distress from them. Raw onion doesn’t agree with people when you aren’t eating much else. But those greens would have made soup for days.
A big thing that enabled that was having a community.
It's really hard to make a pot if you are trading making that pot with finding food for the day.
That's why when they did the season with couples, they were able to get a lot more done simply because 1 person could spend the day building a shelter while the other person foraged.
The moose guy that won did so because he had a huge calorie surplus from killing the moose. That freed him up to spend pretty much all his time foraging for plants or building shelter.
> Making lots of tea and thin soups in the winter should have been a target for many of them.
Most plants have almost no calories. Soups are useful as a preservation technique but only work if you are constantly adding fairly calorie dense items (like meat) into the mix. If you haven't sourced beans, potatoes, or rice plants then a soup won't really do much to improve your survival.
The benefit of tea or soup is you are boiling the water which prevents a good number of diseases.
It's really hard to make a pot if you are trading making that pot with finding food for the day.
That's why when they did the season with couples, they were able to get a lot more done simply because 1 person could spend the day building a shelter while the other person foraged.
The moose guy that won did so because he had a huge calorie surplus from killing the moose. That freed him up to spend pretty much all his time foraging for plants or building shelter.
> Making lots of tea and thin soups in the winter should have been a target for many of them.
Most plants have almost no calories. Soups are useful as a preservation technique but only work if you are constantly adding fairly calorie dense items (like meat) into the mix. If you haven't sourced beans, potatoes, or rice plants then a soup won't really do much to improve your survival.
The benefit of tea or soup is you are boiling the water which prevents a good number of diseases.
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Most of them did a simply terrible job of building a fireplace, from poisoning themselves with the smoke to literally burning their shelter down. Some built a bed up off the ground, which is smart, but never seemed to consider heating up rocks in the fireplace during the day and slipping them under the bed at night.
Anyhow, some mud and clay skills would help make a decent fireplace.
Staying warm is a crucial skill, not a luxury. Some of them got frostbite.
Also, most of them had food storage problems where their meat would get robbed. Some went to great effort to make their meat inaccessible, to no avail. I imagine that would make a storage pot useful.
Anyhow, some mud and clay skills would help make a decent fireplace.
Staying warm is a crucial skill, not a luxury. Some of them got frostbite.
Also, most of them had food storage problems where their meat would get robbed. Some went to great effort to make their meat inaccessible, to no avail. I imagine that would make a storage pot useful.
P.S. I've learned to spot the losers early on. They always try to build a monumental log cabin, which drains away their energy and they cannot replace it and tap out. Others spend their time carving toys for their kids instead of looking for food.
To win you need to make a minimal cabin and spend all your time looking for food.
To win you need to make a minimal cabin and spend all your time looking for food.
I haven't watched the show but I watched the first season and loved when the guy from my homestate (GA) did the right thing and just wallered in a mud pit for the whole thing to win. One random dude was trying to build a kayak or some shit. lol
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.
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.
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.
They did a season in Vancouver Island before they started making the show super weird.
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 picking up sharp objects. Things get stepped on and pressed into soil. Many many reasons to find pottery shards where they seemingly don’t belong.
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
Are they problematic though? There were earthworms there before the ice age I think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North...
Also learning about this today. Apparently they're bad for ecosystems that had evolved with slowly decaying organic matter (because they eat it all quickly). In particular forests.
At least in my education they have always been framed as a vital component of the ecosystem and a sign of healthy soil. It's interesting to learn that's not true.
Also learning about this today. Apparently they're bad for ecosystems that had evolved with slowly decaying organic matter (because they eat it all quickly). In particular forests.
At least in my education they have always been framed as a vital component of the ecosystem and a sign of healthy soil. It's interesting to learn that's not true.
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?
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...
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?
Has a drastic change occurred in the forest floors of, say, temperate Georgia?
I guess I don't care to understand your point.
The earthworms I am talking about were introduced by modern fishermen and have reduced mushroom habitat.
The earthworms I am talking about were introduced by modern fishermen and have reduced mushroom habitat.
I have thought about this and figured it was more mechanical (ie drainage) than chemical (nutrients).
Yes very established in Hydro and Aquaponics
Clay pellets / balls
Clay pellets / balls
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.
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.
Clay regulates various elements in the water (too much: they adsorb some, not enough: they release), enhances drainage...
Some species of bacteria needed for the vital nitrogen-cycle thrive inside clay.
That's the reason why clay balls/pebbles/pellets are omnipresent in many types of plant cultivation projects.
Some species of bacteria needed for the vital nitrogen-cycle thrive inside clay.
That's the reason why clay balls/pebbles/pellets are omnipresent in many types of plant cultivation projects.
If you added the pottery fragments to the compost pile they would be “baked” again, albeit in a very different environment, and the finished product would have structural diversity closer to soil. Normally that would be rocks, but if your goal is to grow food clay rocks might be better for many reasons.
It could just be incidental, some broken pottery unintentionally mixed into fire ash that was intentionally spread on a field.
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.
How would you characterize this distinction? It sounds like you're simply describing the same behavior.
Intentional vs incidental?
Does this matter? That is extremely difficult to differentiate via the archaeological record, so most archaeological research simply abandons the distinction. You should essentially never read intention into archaeology unless someone makes an extremely strong case the alternatives might be firmly excluded. As an example for a strong case of intention: if you find twenty skulls with pickaxes in their heads lined up on a shelf in an underground cubicular room, you should probably not assume this is a coincidence.
If you're reading about the use of pottery in soil, it does not matter what the people intended—at least, not as a primary concern. It is easy to read intention into headlines though.
If you're reading about the use of pottery in soil, it does not matter what the people intended—at least, not as a primary concern. It is easy to read intention into headlines though.
This is the intention the previous poster was countering:
> 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
> 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
Is the intention supposed to be in the quote, or are you trying to show there was no intention implied? I certainly agree with the latter.
I read "using them as compost" as intention
They probably couldn't be bothered to sort trash and compost into separate bins.
Until further evidence is found it’s premature to say that there is no doubt that it was widely used in the Americas. I think there is doubt though that could be removed with more evidence.
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.
There's some interesting examples in the Readme.
Does LIDAR work underwater?
FWIU in Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan, there's a 9,000 year old stonehenge-like structure 40 feet underwater; that's 4000 thousand years older than Stonehenge and about 6000 years older than the Osireoin and the Pyramids.
/? Michigan underwater stonehenge: https://www.google.com/search?q=michigan+underwater+stonehen...
There's not even a name or a wikipedia page for the site? There are various presumed Clovis sites which are now underwater in TN, as well.
FWIU in Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan, there's a 9,000 year old stonehenge-like structure 40 feet underwater; that's 4000 thousand years older than Stonehenge and about 6000 years older than the Osireoin and the Pyramids.
/? Michigan underwater stonehenge: https://www.google.com/search?q=michigan+underwater+stonehen...
There's not even a name or a wikipedia page for the site? There are various presumed Clovis sites which are now underwater in TN, as well.
A lot of the pictures used in articles for this are pictures of something else (possible an old ship). Here's what it actually looks like: https://holleyarchaeology.com/index.php/the-truth-about-the-...
Calling it Stonehenge-like is a real stretch.
Calling it Stonehenge-like is a real stretch.
That's a better source than what I found;
> The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones which is over a mile in length.
> [...] may be a prehistoric drive line for herding caribou
Also speculation that the Sage Wall in Montana is simply a geologic formation.
> The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones which is over a mile in length.
> [...] may be a prehistoric drive line for herding caribou
Also speculation that the Sage Wall in Montana is simply a geologic formation.
Bathymetric lidar exists, but it's a lot more common for there to be enough particulates in water to mess it up than for air.
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.
The 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.
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.
You'd be surprised but the "landraces" e.g. historic geographically constrained cultivars tend to do better than modern cultivars in certain geographical regions. A modern even GMO cultivar might have a couple of beneficial traits introduced over the course of a few decades of work. Whereas a landrace might have been selected for yield in that area for a thousand years or more, maybe 100x or more as many generations under selection. As such there is a huge interest among a subset of biologists today to catalog all of these remaining landrace crops and the genetic diversity they contain before they are lost, either due to changing climate wiping out their native environment or the modern farmer replacing these cultivars with ones you can buy in bulk quantities from your seed supplier and have more of an export market (some landrace crops aren't fit for export shipping due to fragility of the crop unlike more modern cultivars; bananas are a good example where there are 1000 types grown but only 1 single varietal particularly fit for overseas shipping hits the supermarket).
It doesn't take many generations for selective breeding to show improvements in landraces. Even just making sure that volunteers from seeds that were thrown out as food waste were given a chance to fruit and seed starts that process.
One of the more interesting sources of landraces can be found in local seed saving programs, such as ones hosted by local libraries. They are more likely to be viable seeds that is adapting to the local conditions.
One of the more interesting sources of landraces can be found in local seed saving programs, such as ones hosted by local libraries. They are more likely to be viable seeds that is adapting to the local conditions.
Corn is grown in the UP with current varieties currently. It’s not commercially viable because the yields are too low to compete with southern mega yield growers in a highly connected market with efficient transportation systems. There isn’t anything fundamentally hard about growing lower yield corn crops at that location though.
It didn’t necessarily need to be highly productive, just more productive than cultivating local stuff, and even if the corn was not necessarily at its most productive it might have been worth it (and with no real replacement) as part of the companion garden, getting just a few ears of corn would still have been worth more than unproductive wooden stakes.
Or, they had far advanced knowledge of working and remediating soil to grow food. Peat mosses, charcoal, household compost, are all valid soil additives that we now have scientific knowledge to explain how those benefit soil, but they were practicing it in soil that is otherwise unproductive. Given that no one else farmed it in that time it seems that knowledge was lost, but lines up with regenerative agriculture practices we see today.
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.
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 unknown factor.
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 unknown factor.
Agreed, but this tradition of speculation had been around for decades before researchers figured out just how severe the plague toll had been. I think part of that was the lack of stone buildings in the eastern United States setting the tone for Americans to think that the native peoples outside of Mesoamerica had been small hunter-gatherer tribes because it took time to establish how large the pre-Colombian populations had been in places like the Mississippian culture or that there are ways to manage the environment other than by plowing fields for grains which weren’t native to the continent.
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 thousands or even millions of years of eveolution of diseases that evolved in Africa/Eurasia pretty much gets purged during that migration.
Sure, "random" isn't the right term for what I mean.
There were reasons, but neither side understood them!
From their perspective, it just so happened that 80-90% of the population on one side died within weeks of contact. Often the disease travelled faster than the invaders, so as the went inland they found mostly empty settlements they could just take over.
It's easy to see how both sides could think that the god(s), in their inscrutable ways, had decided to give the land to the Europeans.
This also played out in the opposite direction in Africa. There the Europeans just couldn't survive for long until Malaria treatments became available in the mid 1800s, and so Africa was colonized last. Since Africa is where humanity originated, it has the most diseases and parasites that specialize in feeding on us.
There were reasons, but neither side understood them!
From their perspective, it just so happened that 80-90% of the population on one side died within weeks of contact. Often the disease travelled faster than the invaders, so as the went inland they found mostly empty settlements they could just take over.
It's easy to see how both sides could think that the god(s), in their inscrutable ways, had decided to give the land to the Europeans.
This also played out in the opposite direction in Africa. There the Europeans just couldn't survive for long until Malaria treatments became available in the mid 1800s, and so Africa was colonized last. Since Africa is where humanity originated, it has the most diseases and parasites that specialize in feeding on us.
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.
They also had a civilization knowledge base within them , which they could have mined. But there wasn't even a united south-north native empire.
> 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.
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
What graphs are you seeing? This is what the article says:
> Radiocarbon dating suggests the ridges [farming furrows or similar] were initially constructed roughly 1,000 years ago. They were maintained and used for 600 years after that.
Wikipedia says this:
> Erik Thorvaldsson (c. 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer [...]
> Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE
["Erik the Red"]
And this:
> The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region.
> The period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries
> The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
["Little Ice Age"]
And this:
> The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about 950 CE to about 1250 CE.
["Medieval Warm Period"]
The article would appear to suggest that the farm was established near the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period and abandoned near the beginning of the Little Ice Age... which seems incredibly unsurprising.
> They would have been farming here during a cool period.
I see no indication of that.
> Radiocarbon dating suggests the ridges [farming furrows or similar] were initially constructed roughly 1,000 years ago. They were maintained and used for 600 years after that.
Wikipedia says this:
> Erik Thorvaldsson (c. 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer [...]
> Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE
["Erik the Red"]
And this:
> The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region.
> The period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries
> The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
["Little Ice Age"]
And this:
> The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about 950 CE to about 1250 CE.
["Medieval Warm Period"]
The article would appear to suggest that the farm was established near the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period and abandoned near the beginning of the Little Ice Age... which seems incredibly unsurprising.
> They would have been farming here during a cool period.
I see no indication of that.
> The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
Why do you ask? I'm not familiar with any such theory. Krakatoa erupted in... 1883, which doesn't seem like a good match. And volcanic winters don't seem to last much more than 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter#Past_volcanic_...
There is a theory that the Little Ice Age was precipitated by the reforestation of land in America as the natives died off from exposure to European diseases. And of course, there's always the theory that it's just something that happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter#Past_volcanic_...
There is a theory that the Little Ice Age was precipitated by the reforestation of land in America as the natives died off from exposure to European diseases. And of course, there's always the theory that it's just something that happened.
I didn't realize that the original quote (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44282822) was lifted nearly verbatim from Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
More from that same page:
More from that same page:
> Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, variations in Earth's orbit and axial tilt (orbital forcing), inherent variability in global climate, and decreases in the human population (such as from the massacres by Genghis Khan, the Black Death and the epidemics emerging in the Americas upon European contact).> I didn't realize that the original quote (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44282822) was lifted nearly verbatim from Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
I don't know what more I can do than saying "Wikipedia says this: _____ ['Little Ice Age']".
I don't know what more I can do than saying "Wikipedia says this: _____ ['Little Ice Age']".
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Maybe they should make the paper accessible to the public. Taking public grants to do research but not providing the paper to the public is shameful.
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 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).
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).
The article quotes a researcher: “Most field systems have been either lost or destroyed due to intensive land use across most of North America, through farming, including pastures and the cutting down of trees for urban development,”
My watching of years of Time Team episodes tells me that Roman mosaic floors keep being found in England, like https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/rutland-roman-... from about 1,500 years ago. Doing so makes the news.
These floors, and the ruins around them, whilst buried, don't always survive the last century or two of machine plowing, which goes deeper than the medieval animal-based plowing.
Imagine the archeological excitement by your bus stop if a preserved part of the farm from 1,000 years ago were discovered, barely disturbed, giving archeologists a snapshot of what daily life was like at the time.
You know also know the story of Pompeii, and how its ruins have helped understand the Roman era.
This story is likely somewhere in between those two. Unlike your bus stop farm there aren't written records from the 1,000 years ago, nor are there many other sites from which to draw comparable results.
My watching of years of Time Team episodes tells me that Roman mosaic floors keep being found in England, like https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/rutland-roman-... from about 1,500 years ago. Doing so makes the news.
These floors, and the ruins around them, whilst buried, don't always survive the last century or two of machine plowing, which goes deeper than the medieval animal-based plowing.
Imagine the archeological excitement by your bus stop if a preserved part of the farm from 1,000 years ago were discovered, barely disturbed, giving archeologists a snapshot of what daily life was like at the time.
You know also know the story of Pompeii, and how its ruins have helped understand the Roman era.
This story is likely somewhere in between those two. Unlike your bus stop farm there aren't written records from the 1,000 years ago, nor are there many other sites from which to draw comparable results.
Put another way: There are about 38 generations in one thousand years. So, yes, it doesn't seem that long!
https://howmanygenerations.com/
https://howmanygenerations.com/
[deleted]
It could be continuously worked but someone manifested destiny.
Science Mag Podcast covered this as well... with Madeleine McLeester, assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Dartmouth College.
I thought interesting that they have yet to find the village that associates with the gardens.
https://www.science.org/content/podcast/farming-maize-ice-ag...
It’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.
But a farmer is a professional scientist and a professional gardener. Living 1k years ago did not make them uninformed or unskilled at their profession. It's quite a modern bias to suggest this is amateur.
My use of ‘amateur’ was more about how their methods predate formal scientific institutions rather than diminishing their expertise.
"Stuff grows good in this black muck, but floods here and is hard to work in. Let's bring some of it up closer to the camp."
The article seems to assume that the same tribe lived in that place for a thousand years. The pre-Columbian histories I've seen had the tribes moving around, based on comparisons of DNA evidence.
Do you have a link to those histories? Everything I've seen is saying the Menominee were a settled people pre-Columbian.
https://www.mpm.edu/index.php/content/wirp/ICW-153
It was a TV documentary. I'm sorry I don't recall the title.
There's also "Empire of the Summer Moon" about the migrations around the southern US.
There's also "Empire of the Summer Moon" about the migrations around the southern US.
Ah, found your issue. You are subscribed to the incorrect mainstream view that all native Americans nations were more or less exactly the same. You'd have as much success do this as you would learning about the Roman's by studying the tribal Germanic people.
I'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.
Clearly it was logged for a while, and perhaps they were expecting to cut it down again at some point.
What is farmed in this country is land compatible with american farming practices not fertile land. E.G. any mountainous farm region in the U.S. will see basically only farming on the valley bottoms. Whereas many civilizations in the past and present developed terrace farms to make use of the entire hilly region not just the convenient bottoms. It isn't really done in the U.S. due to the cost and the availability of vast quantities of flat farmable land well beyond market need.
The growing season starts in late May. So only the land most amenable to tractors is really actively farmed. It's partly why there's so much forest.
And then much of the logging the UP is selective harvesting rather than clear cutting, so they go in every so often and take out the larger trees.
And then much of the logging the UP is selective harvesting rather than clear cutting, so they go in every so often and take out the larger trees.
Related: Check out the book Tending the Earth by Winin Pereira, on Other India Press.
https://www.google.com/search?q=tending+the+earth+winin+pere...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_India_Press
https://www.google.com/search?q=tending+the+earth+winin+pere...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_India_Press
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.
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.
A while back it dawned on me that we think the greatest past civilizations were all in Egypt, the Middle East, and Mesopotamia because those areas are deserts or semi-deserts. They built out of stone because they didn't have much wood, and their writings survived because they weren't destroyed by water.
There could have been very sophisticated societies, even large scale civilizations, in the past in places like North America that built mainly out of wood, clay, bone, and other readily available materials, and there'd be nothing left. Any writings would be gone too, since writings don't survive well in wet climates unless they are chiseled into very durable stone or vitrified pottery (and even then they can erode).
There could have been very sophisticated societies, even large scale civilizations, in the past in places like North America that built mainly out of wood, clay, bone, and other readily available materials, and there'd be nothing left. Any writings would be gone too, since writings don't survive well in wet climates unless they are chiseled into very durable stone or vitrified pottery (and even then they can erode).
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.
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.
At the time when the fields in this article were being tilled, the Europeans were building castles, cathedrals, river spanning arched stone bridges, multi-masted sailing ships and trebuchets and massive siege engines using tools of iron and steel. People in middle east were already working with colored glass and people in China were already working with porcelain, gunpowder and early printing presses. A thousand years or more before that, the Greeks were already working with complex geared mechanisms and making things like the Antikythera mechanism and proto steam turbines. The people tilling these fields on the other hand were using relatively simple stone, bone and wooden tools, and hadn't even invented the wheel yet.
While I appreciate the point you're trying to make that native Americans weren't some kind of savages as they were all too frequently portrayed in the past, the notion that their level of technological or societal development was anywhere near that of Europe, the Middle East or China at the time does not reflect actual history. Relatively speaking, outside the empires of Meso-America most pre-contact American societies were substantially less complex that European societies, and from a purely technological perspective every single American society ever documented was vastly less technologically complex than European, Middle Eastern and East Asian societies. So from that lens its not unreasonable for the Europeans of the time to have perceived the native Americans as less socially and technologically advanced as they were, as that was simply the reality of world at the time.
Also, any historian with any knowledge of actual pre-contact North American societies can tell you they too were subjugating and killing any other populations they encountered just as much as the Europeans did when they arrived on the continent. The notion that native societies lived some kind of eco-friendly, conflict free lifestyle is just as egregious of whitewashing as any former settler narratives.
While I appreciate the point you're trying to make that native Americans weren't some kind of savages as they were all too frequently portrayed in the past, the notion that their level of technological or societal development was anywhere near that of Europe, the Middle East or China at the time does not reflect actual history. Relatively speaking, outside the empires of Meso-America most pre-contact American societies were substantially less complex that European societies, and from a purely technological perspective every single American society ever documented was vastly less technologically complex than European, Middle Eastern and East Asian societies. So from that lens its not unreasonable for the Europeans of the time to have perceived the native Americans as less socially and technologically advanced as they were, as that was simply the reality of world at the time.
Also, any historian with any knowledge of actual pre-contact North American societies can tell you they too were subjugating and killing any other populations they encountered just as much as the Europeans did when they arrived on the continent. The notion that native societies lived some kind of eco-friendly, conflict free lifestyle is just as egregious of whitewashing as any former settler narratives.
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>the true savages were the Europeans...
Look I completely agree with your whole comment, especially the line above, but it has very little to do with the GP.
Their comment is about "big state systems", which are a totally different thing from culture, complex society, technology, or savagery.
Look I completely agree with your whole comment, especially the line above, but it has very little to do with the GP.
Their comment is about "big state systems", which are a totally different thing from culture, complex society, technology, or savagery.
The native Americans of the pacific northwest practiced slavery and would murder them during potlatch ceremonies. When Europeans showed up in New Zealand the Maori were busy commenting genocide against the Moriori.
Let be serious here people are shitty.
Let be serious here people are shitty.
I'd be interested in an alternative world history where the first humans into North America had domesticated and saved the local horses that were kicking around, or the Vikings had left a bunch on their earlier expeditions. Alternatively where the Vikings had managed to give the locals small pox and other European diseases en-masse before leaving.
Not exactly your scenario, but The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson, has Europe almost wiped out by the Black Death.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2723.The_Years_of_Rice_a...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2723.The_Years_of_Rice_a...
Does anyone know a 3 sisters equivalent native to Eurasia?
Asia and Africa have rich historical polyculture traditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture?wprov=sfti1#Histor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture?wprov=sfti1#Histor...
From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
> Geographer Carl O. Sauer described the Three Sisters as "a symbiotic plant complex of North and Central America without an equal elsewhere".It's not quite the same but growing carp alongside rice in a paddy. The fish eat pests and fertilise the water.
There isn't one; closest is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation
Probably rice cultivation with an understanding of irrigation
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
"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
For anyone else confused about the three sisters and why they weren't mentioned in the article, it's a reference to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
Was the article edited? I don't see a reference to the phrase "three sisters" on it, it just says "corn, beans, and squash." Did the original headline mention it?
No, not in the archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250612153046/https://www.smith...
Oh, was this mentioned in the original HN title? Has that been edited?
Yes, it was. https://web.archive.org/web/20250615154352/https://news.ycom...
Original HN title was "1k year old 3 sisters crop farm found in Northern Michigan"
I really wish that when titles were edited there was some history, it would make it much easier to understand these little discussions based on the original title.
No, not in the archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250612153046/https://www.smith...
Oh, was this mentioned in the original HN title? Has that been edited?
Yes, it was. https://web.archive.org/web/20250615154352/https://news.ycom...
Original HN title was "1k year old 3 sisters crop farm found in Northern Michigan"
I really wish that when titles were edited there was some history, it would make it much easier to understand these little discussions based on the original title.
Thank you! That headline really threw me for a loop.
Thank you. The other thing I really wanted to know was why they were arranged in mounds/quilt? I’m guessing it relates to irrigation
My hunch (based on how my grandfather would cultivate) was to provide a mount of fertilizer for added nitrogen along with the added irrigation aspects.
It's surprising ("I'm shocked, shocked, well not that shocked") how this style of farming somehow made it all the way to my ancestral village for cultivating these New World crops.
Gotta love proto-globalization.
It's surprising ("I'm shocked, shocked, well not that shocked") how this style of farming somehow made it all the way to my ancestral village for cultivating these New World crops.
Gotta love proto-globalization.
1k year old?
One click away is the article title :
"Massive Fields Where Native American Farmers Grew Corn, Beans and Squash 1,000 Years Ago Discovered in Michigan"
"Massive Fields Where Native American Farmers Grew Corn, Beans and Squash 1,000 Years Ago Discovered in Michigan"
My thoughts too. Using SI prefix for a thousand years is uncommon.
[deleted]
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.