The application of bio-char (charcoal or biomass-derived black carbon (C)) to soil is pro- posed as a novel approach to establish a significant, long-term, sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide in terrestrial ecosystems. Apart from positive effects in both reducing emissions and increasing the sequestration of greenhouse gases, the production of bio-char and its application to soil will deliver im- mediate benefits through improved soil fertility and increased crop production. Conversion of biomass C to bio-char C leads to sequestration of about 50% of the initial C compared to the low amounts retained after burning (3%) and biological decomposition (<10-20% after 5-10 years), therefore yielding more stable soil C than burning or direct land application of biomass. This efficiency of C conversion of biomass to bio-char is highly dependent on the type of feedstock, but is not significantly affected by the pyrolysis temperature (within 350-500 ◦ C common for pyrolysis). Existing slash-and- burn systems cause significant degradation of soil and release of greenhouse gases and opportunies may exist to enhance this system by conversion to slash-and-char systems. Our global analysis revealed that up to 12% of the total anthropogenic C emissions by land use change (0.21 Pg C) can be off-set annually in soil, if slash-and-burn is replaced by slash-and-char. Agricultural and forestry wastes such as forest residues, mill residues, field crop residues, or urban wastes add a conservatively estimated 0.16 Pg C yr −1 . Biofuel production using modern biomass can produce a bio-char by-product through pyrolysis which results in 30.6 kg C sequestration for each GJ of energy produced. Using published projections of the use of renewable fuels in the year 2100, bio-char sequestration could amount to 5.5-9.5 Pg C yr −1 if this demand for energy was met through pyrolysis, which would exceed current emissions from fossil fuels (5.4 Pg C yr −1 ). Bio-char soil management systems can deliver tradable C emissions reduction, and C sequestered is easily accountable, and verifiable.

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Bio-char sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems - a review

Natural organic biomass burning creates black carbon which forms a considerable proportion of the soil’s organic carbon. Due to black carbon’s aromatic structure it is recalcitrant and has the potential for long-term carbon sequestration in soil. Soils within the Amazon-basin contain numerous sites where the ‘dark earth of the Indians’ (Terra preta de Indio, or Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE)) exist and are composed of variable quantities of highly stable organic black carbon waste (‘biochar’). The apparent high agronomic fertility of these sites, relative to tropical soils in general, has attracted interest. Biochars can be produced by ‘baking’ organic matter under low oxygen (‘pyrolysis’). The quantities of key mineral elements within these biochars can be directly related to the levels of these components in the feedstock prior to burning. Their incorporation in soils influences soil structure, texture, porosity, particle size distribution and density. The molecular structure of biochars shows a high degree of chemical and microbial stability. A key physical feature of most biochars is their highly porous structure and large surface area. This structure can provide refugia for beneficial soil micro-organisms such as mycorrhizae and bacteria, and influences the binding of important nutritive cations and anions. This binding can enhance the availability of macro-nutrients such as N and P. Other biochar soil changes include alkalisation of soil pH and increases in electrical conductivity (EC) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). Ammonium leaching has been shown to be reduced, along with N2O soil emissions. There may also be reductions in soil mechanical impedance. Terra preta soils contain a higher number of ‘operational taxonomic units’ and have highly distinctive microbial communities relative to neighbouring soils. The potential importance of biochar soil incorporation on mycorrhizal fungi has also been noted with biochar providing a physical niche devoid of fungal grazers. Improvements in soil field capacity have been recorded upon biochar additions. Evidence shows that bioavailability and plant uptake of key nutrients increases in response to biochar application, particularly when in the presence of added nutrients. Depending on the quantity of biochar added to soil significant improvements in plant productivity have been achieved, but these reports derive predominantly from studies in the tropics. As yet there is limited critical analysis of possible agricultural impacts of biochar application in temperate regions, nor on the likelihood of utilising such soils as long-term sites for carbon sequestration. This review aims to determine the extent to which inferences of experience mostly from tropical regions could be extrapolated to temperate soils and to suggest areas requiring study.

Potential mechanisms for achieving agricultural benefits from biochar application to temperate soils: a review

The intention of this work is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted the historical accounts of these societies before European intervention. It asserts that anthropology must pay more attention to history.

Europe and the People without History

It is clear that the above can lead to confusion when scientists of different countries are trying to communicate with each other. Another example is the burrowing rodent called a gopher found throughout the western United States. In the southeastern United States the term gopher refers to a burrowing turtle very similar to the desert tortoise found in the American southwest. One final example; two North American mammals known as the elk and the caribou are known in Europe as the reindeer and the elk. We never sing “Rudolph the Red-nosed elk”! Confused? This was the reason for creating an internationally recognized system of naming organisms. To avoid confusion, living organisms are assigned a scientific name based on Latin or Latinized words. The English sparrow is Passer domesticus or Passer domesticus (italics or underlining these two names is the official written representation of a scientific name). Using a uniform naming system allows scientists from all over the world to recognize exactly which life form a scientist is referring to. The naming process is called the binomial system of nomenclature. Passer is comparable to a surname and is called the genus, while domesticus is the specific or species name (like your given name) of the English sparrow. Now scientists can give all sparrow-like birds the genus Passer but the species name will vary. All similar genera (plural for genus) can be grouped into another, “higher” category (see below). Study the following for a more through understanding of taxonomy. Taxonomy Analogy Kingdom: Animalia Country

Diversity of life

PrefaceContributorsTime, Complexity, and Historical Ecology, by William Balee and Clark L. EricksonPart 11. The Feral Forests of the Eastern Peten, by David G. Campbell, Anabel Ford, Karen S. Lowell, Jay Walker, Jeffrey K. Lake, Constanza Ocampo-Raeder, Andrew Townesmith, and Michael Balick2. A Neotropical Framework for Terra Preta, by Elizabeth Graham3. Domesticated Food and Society in Early Coastal Peru, by Christine A. Hastorf4. Microvertebrate Synecology and Anthropogenic Footprints in the Forested Neotropics, by Peter W. StahlPart 25. Pre-European Forest Cultivation in Amazonia, by William M. Denevan6. Fruit Trees and the Transition to Food Production in Amazonia, by Charles R. Clement7. The Historical Ecology of a Complex Landscape in Bolivia, Clark L. Erickson and William Balee8. The Domesticated Landscapes of the Bolivian Amazon, by Clark L. Erickson9. Political Economy and Pre-Columbian Landscape Transformations in Central Amazonia, by Eduardo G. Neves and James B. Petersen10. History, Ecology, and Alterity: Visualizing Polity in Ancient Amazonia, by Michael Heckenberger11. Between the Ship and the Bulldozer: Historical Ecology of Guaja Subsistence, Sociality, and Symbolism After 1500, by Loretta A. Cormier12. Landscapes of the Past, Footprints of the Future: Historical Ecology and the Study of Contemporary Land-Use Change in the Amazon, by Eduardo S. BrondizioIndex

Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands

Historical ecologists working in the Neotropics argue that the present natural environment is an historical product of human intentionality and ingenuity, a creation that is imposed, built, managed and maintained by the collective multigenerational knowledge and experience of Native Americans1,2. In the past 12,000 years, indigenous peoples transformed the environment, creating what we now recognize as the rich ecological mosaic of the Neotropics3,4,5,6. The prehispanic savanna peoples of the Bolivian Amazon built an anthropogenic landscape through the construction of raised fields, large settlement mounds, and earthen causeways7,8. I have studied a complex artificial network of hydraulic earthworks covering 525 km2 in the Baures region of Bolivia. Here I identify a particular form of earthwork, the zigzag structure, as a fish weir, on the basis of form, orientation, location, association with other hydraulic works and ethnographic analogy. The native peoples used this technology to harvest sufficient animal protein to sustain large and dense populations in a savanna environment.

An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon

When one thinks of Amazonia, images of large towering trees, dark and humid forests, brightly colored frogs, and smiling native people decorated in paint and feathers come to mind. In addition to engaging public awareness, these popular images are used to raise funds for conservation, to advance green politics, and to promote cultural and ecotourism. They are updated versions of nineteenth century imagery common in travel books and explorers’ accounts of Amazonia as a Green Hell or as the Garden of Eden. Surprisingly, many colleagues in the natural sciences and conservation still hold similar notions about Amazonia. These romantic views of nature are contrasted to the reality of contemporary humans destroying the ecosystems of Amazonia through modern development. Loss of biodiversity, extinction of species, deforestation, erosion, pollution, and global warming are attributed to humans and their activities. Recent studies argue that humans have been involved in environmental degradation, ecological catastrophe, and global change throughout their existence. Traditional historical, geographical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives on native Amazonia share these negative views. In the classic literature, past and present Amazonian cultures are considered to have been determined largely by the environment to which they adapted. What appears to be a lush, bountiful setting for human development is actually a counterfeit paradise according to some scholars (e.g., Meggers 1971). Environmental limitations, such as poor soils and a lack of protein, combined with a limited technology, few domestic animals, and abundant unoccupied land restricted social development. The simple societies of Amazonia did not evolve into what we recognize as civilization. In this traditional view, the environment is an immutable given or a fixed entity to which human societies adapt (or do not, and thus, fail, and disappear). The basic assumption is that poor environments produce simple societies (band societies of hunters, gatherers, and fishers or

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthropology/system/files/EricksonAmazonia2008b.pdf

Amazonia: The Historical Ecology of a Domesticated Landscape

In early anthropology, environmental determinism was used to explain race, human demography, material culture, cultural variation and cultural change. As anthropological interpretation evolved, simplistic reductionist thinking was replaced with more complex socio-cultural explanations. Despite these theoretical advances,environmental determinism continues to be invoked to explain Andean prehistory.

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Neo-Environmental Determinism and Agrarian "Collapse" in Andean Prehistory

rchaeologists scramble up tall terraces, wade through cold water in irri-gation canals, hop over stone walls, and diligently search farmers’ fields for significant concentrations of potsherds that can be registered as a site. In their search for sites, however, most tend to ignore the landscape and what it can show us about agricultural intensification. Contemporary archaeology is firmly rooted in the site concept. Rural sites are said to date agriculture through proximity, and the density, duration, and distribution of settlements are considered indirect evidence of the degree of agricultural intensification. However, we pay only lip service to agricultural fields and boundaries, path-ways, roads, and shrines—all seem to be secondary to the goal of finding sites in the form of settlements and monuments. Agricultural features might be described and sketched on the back of site survey forms, but they are rarely discussed in final publications. Despite the term’s current popularity,

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Clark L. Erickson

Papers

Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands

An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon

Amazonia: The Historical Ecology of a Domesticated Landscape

Neo-Environmental Determinism and Agrarian "Collapse" in Andean Prehistory

Intensification, Political Economy, and the Farming Community; In Defense Of A Bottom-Up Perspective Of The Past.