Superdirt Made Lost Amazon Cities Possible?

Centuries-old European explorers' tales of lost cities in the Amazon have long been dismissed by scholars, in part because the region is too infertile to feed a sprawling civilization. But new discoveries support the idea of an ancient Amazonian urban network—and ingeniously engineered soil may have made it all possible.
see Ancient Amazon Cities Found; Were Vast Urban Network

Now scientists are trying to recreate the recipe for the apparently human-made supersoil, which still covers up to 10 percent of the Amazon Basin. Key ingredients included of dirt, charcoal, pottery, human excrement and other waste.

If recreated, the engineered soil could feed the hungry and may even help fight global warming, experts suggest

Read on here news.nationalgeographic.com...

Cool. Everyday they are finding that the ancients were more advanced than us. The problem is we think "advanced" means A.C electricity, cars, skyskrapers and computers, fossile fuel burning, wars, when really it is those things that a smart advanced civilization stays away from if it were to advance in equilibrium with the earth.

This is thread is proof."Now scientists are trying to recreate the recipe for the apparently human-made supersoil," Why dont we know these things if we claim we can put a man on the moon?

[edit on 11-12-2008 by IvanZana]

[edit on 11-12-2008 by IvanZana]

if it takes excrement to make superdirt then they must've been eating pretty good before hand. i just want to see how this is going to be tied in to atlantis! (i drink alot around this time of night)

this is pretty good, it's always good to see an eye opener. but don't forget about the hoax tribes found in the amazon before.

Hey Mozzy

Not a particularly new discovery but one that is important. Science does take time to learn everything and knowledge can be lost particularly if the knowledge is not needed by people-or they think they don't need it. We went to the Moon because we wanted to. Politics intervened and just now, forty years later people have become interested in going back.

Same with the soils, its part of the return to organic re-created soils, its became important again and people are relearning. Of course once they encounter the smell....

Terra preta soils are of pre-Columbian nature and were created by man between 7000 BP and 500 BP. The soil's depth can reach 2 metres. Thousands of years after its creation it is reputedly known as self-regenerating at the rate of 1 centimetre per year by the local farmers and caboclos in Brazil's Amazonian basin, and they seek it out for use and for sale as valuable compost.

Terra preta sites are also known in other South American areas (Ecuador, Peru, Guyana), in West Africa (Benin, Liberia), and on the South African savannas. Similar soil was found in late Roman Britain and were known in China as dark earth.

Paraphrased from the beloved Wiki at

Terra Preta

(quote tags)

[edit on 12/12/08 by Jbird]