Global Terra Preta: Ancient African Regenerative Agriculture Methods скачать в хорошем качестве

Global Terra Preta: Ancient African Regenerative Agriculture Methods

Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), often referred to as terra preta, are among the clearest examples of long-term, human-engineered soils in the archaeological record. Formed through centuries of sustained habitation, waste deposition, fire use, and organic inputs, these soils remain darker, more fertile, and chemically distinct from surrounding soils long after the societies that created them disappeared. What is less widely known is that closely comparable anthropogenic dark soils have been documented across sub-Saharan Africa. In this follow-up to the Terra Preta project, the focus shifts to West Africa, where anthropologists, archaeologists, and soil scientists have identified localized patches of dark, organically enriched soils directly associated with long-term human settlement. In Guinea and southern Mali, these soils occur beneath abandoned villages, household compounds, and habitation mounds dating to the Iron Age and earlier. They form discrete, sharply bounded patches that contrast strongly with surrounding Ferralsols and Acrisols, which are typically low in organic matter and nutrient availability. Excavations consistently reveal ceramic sherds, charcoal fragments, bone residues, and ash distributed throughout the upper soil horizons. This vertical mixing indicates repeated inputs over long periods rather than a single occupation or depositional event. Chemical analyses frequently report elevated phosphorus concentrations, a widely accepted indicator of sustained human presence linked to food waste, bone, manure, and organic refuse. While these African soils vary in composition and formation pathways, their spatial patterning, material inclusions, and long-term fertility strongly parallel the defining features of Amazonian Dark Earths (terra preta). Together, these findings suggest that terra preta is not a singular Amazonian anomaly, but part of a broader pattern of independently developed, human-engineered soil systems. This video begins a regional series examining African anthropogenic dark earths, starting in West Africa, as part of a wider effort to document global analogues to terra preta.