Maybe not. Even corn specifically developed for my area in British Columbia needs a very warm summer to do well.
I wonder if it’s possible that they used corn less as a food crop and more as a scaffolding crop in the 3 sisters system.
Microclimates? The whole world was warmer. Remember when the Vikings settled Greenland? That was 1000 years ago.
> Radiocarbon dating suggests the ridges [farming furrows or similar] were initially constructed roughly 1,000 years ago. They were maintained and used for 600 years after that.
Wikipedia says this:
> Erik Thorvaldsson (c. 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer [...]
> Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE
["Erik the Red"]
And this:
> The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region.
> The period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries
> The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
["Little Ice Age"]
And this:
> The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about 950 CE to about 1250 CE.
["Medieval Warm Period"]
The article would appear to suggest that the farm was established near the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period and abandoned near the beginning of the Little Ice Age... which seems incredibly unsurprising.
> They would have been farming here during a cool period.
I see no indication of that.
> The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
Are these due to volcanic eruptions?One of the more interesting sources of landraces can be found in local seed saving programs, such as ones hosted by local libraries. They are more likely to be viable seeds that is adapting to the local conditions.
Clearly it was logged for a while, and perhaps they were expecting to cut it down again at some point.
Exciting - that sounds a lot like Terra preta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
No doubt this practice was used widely across the Americas. The natives were tremendously skilled with plants. This is another step to uncovering some of the knowledge lost. I hope they can find more of these same features.
Also learning about this today. Apparently they're bad for ecosystems that had evolved with slowly decaying organic matter (because they eat it all quickly). In particular forests.
At least in my education they have always been framed as a vital component of the ecosystem and a sign of healthy soil. It's interesting to learn that's not true.
Is it bad that redwoods are doing very well in the UK?
Clay pellets / balls
So over time this pottery would absorb water. And especially low-fired bits could totally break down.
Source: amateur ceramicist, and I have first-hand experience with cone 6 clay (vitrifies at 1200c) bisc-fired to cone 04 (1060c) and crumbling to bits when left in water too long.
Electricity is fine and all, but I imagine the basics of civilization could be replicated by a few good craftsmen(people)
You make a hole or find a piece of slate for processing, you mine clay from a stream bed, and then you make your first pot as a tool for moving water, the second pot for making food, and before or after the second pot you make clay bricks to build a kiln to high fire other things more efficiently - less fuel and more multitasking of other tasks.
There are also long-necked terracotta bottles (called ollas) you can buy (or DIY) which you bury in the ground. You fill the bottle with water and the terracotta itself acts as a wick, providing a slow release continuous underground water source for plants to access.
"Massive Fields Where Native American Farmers Grew Corn, Beans and Squash 1,000 Years Ago Discovered in Michigan"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture?wprov=sfti1#Histor...
It's surprising ("I'm shocked, shocked, well not that shocked") how this style of farming somehow made it all the way to my ancestral village for cultivating these New World crops.
Gotta love proto-globalization.
No, not in the archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250612153046/https://www.smith...
Oh, was this mentioned in the original HN title? Has that been edited?
Yes, it was. https://web.archive.org/web/20250615154352/https://news.ycom...
Original HN title was "1k year old 3 sisters crop farm found in Northern Michigan"
I really wish that when titles were edited there was some history, it would make it much easier to understand these little discussions based on the original title.
https://www.google.com/search?q=tending+the+earth+winin+pere...
folli•12h ago
There's some interesting examples in the Readme.
38•9h ago
TacticalCoder•9h ago