Global Terra Preta: The Americas скачать в хорошем качестве

Global Terra Preta: The Americas

Across the Americas, long before modern agriculture, Indigenous societies actively transformed soils—but not all fertile soils were created the same way. This video explores anthropogenic soils outside the Amazon, focusing on the Maya lowlands, Andean highlands, central Mexico, and eastern North America. Maya communities enhanced thin, nutrient-poor limestone soils through everyday domestic life—waste recycling, ash, food residues, and long-term habitation—creating locally fertile soils that persisted for generations, but depended on continued management. Beyond households, the Maya engineered terraces, raised fields, and managed wetlands, tightly linking soil fertility to water control and landscape design. We also examine chinampas in the Basin of Mexico and Andean raised fields (waru-waru)—highly productive, labor-intensive systems that recycled sediments and nutrients through hydrological engineering. These systems achieved extraordinary yields, but rapidly declined when maintenance stopped. The video then compares these engineered systems with North American Indigenous anthrosols from Woodland and Mississippian societies, where soil enrichment emerged gradually from domestic activity rather than large-scale infrastructure—similar to African settlement soils. Finally, we clarify a common misconception: naturally fertile soils like Chernozems, Mollisols, and volcanic Andisols are not anthropogenic dark earths. Their fertility comes from grassland ecology or volcanic mineralogy—not cumulative human soil-building practices. The takeaway:Outside the Amazon, long-term soil fertility was achievable across the Americas, but usually required continuous management and institutional labor. Only a narrow set of systems—especially carbon-stabilizing dark earths—maintained fertility after human activity ceased.