- In WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com, "parental_unit_2"
<parental_unit_2_at_...> wrote:
>
> --- In WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com, Alison Place
> <alison_place_at_> wrote:
>
> > If you mean that non-Andean populations were never
> > highly developed, that is not the case. There were
> > very dense populations in the Amazon River valley, but
> > these collapsed a hundred years or so before Europeans
> > made it that far, I believe.
>
> A fun book that summarizes this claim for the general reader is _1491:
> New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus_ by Charles C. Mann. I
> can't make scientific judgments about the book, but right or wrong,
> there are some interesting ideas in the Amazon chapter about what
> large-scale jungle agriculture looked like. It ought to be applicable
> somewhere in Glorantha.
>
In a recent science magazine (I think Discover, not sure) there was
quite an interesting (to me at least) article about the 'black soil'
of the amazon. That is, most of the amazon basin has terrible soil,
most nutrients pulled into the trees or washed away. However there
are small patches of very rich dark soil. Recent archeology has
determined that these were created by humans. The key seems to have
been charcoal--the pores in the charcoal hold nutrients well enough
that they don't just rinse away. So instead of just burning the trees
for ash, if you instead burn them into charcoal, and work that into
the ground, along with the usual organics, you can apparently end up
with very rich soil.
That has to show up in Glorantha somewhere--just look at the mythic
resonances!
Also a note on staple crops. In Diamonds "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (I
think it was there) it is stated that the early horticulture of the
eastern united states (before the maize/squash/beans trinity made it
up from central america) was goosefoot, which is apparently distantly
related to ragweed, and about as pleasant as you'd imagine from that
relation. However it is high fat and protein with a seed that can
apparently be stored. They also grew sunflowers as their oil crop.
With regard to nutrition of non-grain crops, apparently you can get
'everything you need' from potatoes and cow's milk (you do have to eat
the potato skin). This was the basis of the high population density
in ireland before the potato famine--potatoes grow at very high
calorie density, and the cows could be partially fed on the left
overs. Potatoes can of course be stored for quite some time in a root
cellar, but I believe the south american natives actually ground them
and and dried them into a sort of potato starch powder that they would
then use in cooking. Not as versatile as grain, but it could be
stored for long periods of time.
Anyone know what the staple crop of Jrustela was/is? If potatos are
not used elsewhere it could be interesting there--and nobody would
trust potatoes now because of the god learners :-)
--Bryan
--Bryan