Posted on 08/16/2011 7:25:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Throughout human history unsustainable agricultural practices have turned fragile ecosystems into wastelands and left people starving. During the Dust Bowl, American farmers learned the consequences of removing the deep rooted grasses from the Great Plains when the soil blew away in tremendous dust storms. Icelandic shepherds learned that the sheep rearing practices their ancestors used on the European mainland destroyed the thin soils of their island and left them with starving herds and little to eat.
The ancient inhabitants of what is now Peru also learned the unhappy consequences of farming in a delicate ecosystem. The Ica Valley, near the coast of southern Peru and the famous Nazca lines, is now a barren desert, but was once a fertile floodplain, anchored by the roots of the huarango tree.
People were able to raise a variety of crops there for several centuries. But intensive agriculture in pre-conquest times led to ecosystem collapse. The history of the land was recently reconstructed by bioarcheologist David Beresford-Jones of the University of Cambridge by looking at plant remains left in ancient garbage heaps.
Beresford-Jones and a team of archeologists studied plant remains associated with settlement sites spanning roughly 750 B.C. to 1000 A.D. They observed the change as the valley inhabitants went from eating mostly gathered foods, to a period of intense agriculture, then back again to surviving on what they could eke out of nature's diminished bounty.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Stop right there — don’t you know that they’re practicing sustainable agriculture?
Pretty much.
I have never seen any actual evidence of any people anywhere on earth refusing to take actions that would make their own lives better because it might damage “the environment.”
With exception of recent environmentalist movements, and in those cases almost without exception someone else will pay the price or at least the enviros think someone else will.
Thanks Fred Nerks!
I thought it was an Abba song, but it was just something in the air.
;’)
Thanks Sherman Logan for both of those.
“Archaeologists found the bodies of hundreds of high caste people on the top of a pyramid in Peru that dated to about 500 AD. They all had their heads bashed in and their throats cut. The events date to a large el nino and the manner of their deaths suggests they were sacrificed.”
OK, now we have an answer for “What should we do about Congress?”
It’s been one of the problems of societies throughout the word that someone who is not responsible for what happens takes one in the ass, or in some cases, the cranium. Apparently people stopped buying their partiicular line of BS.
/bingo
Good catch.
:’)
It’s not just Peru, the Mayans in Copan, Honduras, and elsewhere throughout Central America, eventually died out due to poor agricultural practices and over population.
blam posted that info back in 2005. you also comment (but your comment at the time is a bit different. as well you include blam’s post on your list.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1355266/posts
Second, the Incas did a LOT of tampering with nature and were quite proud of the fact.
Yup. Many of these nobles/priests gained their power by controlling the weather through propitiating the gods.
If the weather gets bad enough they get blamed for it. It appears something fairly similar to a revolt of the proles happened at Cahokia in central US.
Also quite possibly at Chaco Canyon and in the Maya country.
New Orleans, LA, Matagorda and Sergents Beach, TX learned the hard way about the dangers of hurricanes when marsh, grass lands were destroyed with development. Both Matagorda and Sergents are restoring the marsh and grass lands...and I’ve read NO’s is doing the same.
Thank you for the correction. I was making fun of the liberal idea that all past indigenous peoples were all-knowing and living in harmony and peace with Nature.
Second, the Incas did a LOT of tampering with nature and were quite proud of the fact.
Yes, but don't tell that to a Liberal. They will call you a hate monger if you speak the truth.
The Nile valley is a fertile floodplain even today.
That doesn't mean it gets much rain.
Farming the Ica Valley was possible because of the huarango tree woodland, which literally held the floodplain together. The roots of the tree physically anchored the soils and protected the ground from erosion. The trees also maintained fertility by fixing nitrogen from the air and keeping moisture in the soil.
But as more land was cleared for crop production, so much of the woodland was cleared that the huarango's benefits were lost. The land was then exposed to floods from El Niño events and strong winds parched the land when it wasn't flooded.
This was a river valley in a dry area that got its moisture from melting snow in the distant mountains. It was at risk for desertification for a long, long time.
The worst part is, I’m sensitive to all this talk about breadbaskets. ;’) Thanks ckilmer.
The Neolithic revolution Euro-Asia was animal based, with sheep, horses, cows and goats being domesticated. Later people began to plant crops.
In the Americas there was a dearth of usable animals to domesticate so the Neolithic revolution was plant based. Maize, potatoes, beans, cotton, coco, vanilla, squash, tomatoes and peppers were all farmed. While some can be found in a wild form there are a number that can not meaning that they were developed. You don't get that without a lot of tampering.
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