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Researchers Discover First Use of Fertilizer
sciencehabit writes "Europe's first farmers helped spread a revolutionary way of living across the continent. They also spread something else. A new study reveals that these early agriculturalists were fertilizing their crops with manure 8000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought."
Even native americans knew burying a fish next to a corn plant helped it grow faster (assuming a raccoon didn't dig up the fish first)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We find out that we excel at the use of spreading bullshit even earlier than we thought... The joys of being human!
You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
I propose a moratorium of government spending on the history of scatology.
Are you sure politicians weren't the first users? They have been spreading manure since the dawn of man kind.
No shit.
I mean, the earth is only 6000 years old. Who pulled this '8000' out of their ass?
...is that people were convinced that fertilizer was a modern "invention" in the first place. I'm sure it didn't take the genius of a particle physicist to notice that the grass grew better where the animals took a shit, but then I'm not an archaeologist. Kind of like the conspiracy theorists who claim that there was no way human beings could have build the Pyramids without some kind of advanced technology or alien intervention...people seem to seriously underestimate the wisdom of their ancestors, almost to the point of arrogance.
The funny part is that essentially nothing has changed beyond our level of technology. People believed in crazy, stupid shit in antiquity, how is that any different from today? Our ancestors had wonderful things like white make-up made from lead, they drank "radium water" to CURE illnesses. I can't imagine that worked out like it said on the tin. We're much more advanced now though. Now we have people drinking homeopathic remedies containing exactly zero molecules of often poisonous compounds like arsenic, we have walking pairs of tits like Jenny McCarthy telling people not to vaccinate their children...and for all of our wondrous technology, even despite "putting man on the moon," we still have people killing each other over what imaginary friend they've bonded with. Just like the good old days.
Farmers in the Near East—what is today Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and neighboring countries—began cultivating plants and herding animals about 8000 B.C.E., but there are no signs that they used animal dung for anything other than as fuel for fires.
Since it's far more arid in the Middle East, the use of dung for fuel was more obvious due to dried dung being a common thing to find laying around. Where as in Europe, which is far wetter, seeing green things sprout up in dung in the Spring was more easily observed.
And thank you, chucklefuck, for bringing creationism into the discussion and hence giving more airtime to those idiots. Well done you greasy skidmark.
It still covers up to 10% of the Amazon basin, is man made, and if we could figure out how they did it:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081119-lost-cities-amazon.html
Imagine if manure spread thousands of years ago still grew crops today. The terra preta —"dark earth" — of the Amazon is still working today.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Also known as moved back the date of when we think fertilizers were first used...
If they learned to harness bullshit 8,000 years ago, than surely corporate bureaucracy must be that old as well!
If the humanity back then had today's ways of organizing and raising awareness, these potentially dangerous means of agriculture — meant solely to enrich the farmers at the expense of the consumers' health — would've been banned long ago.
Hunting and gathering are the only responsible way to get sustenance. Oh, wait, no — hunting is evil too. Gathering only!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
this post is a bunch of horse shit
I agree that terra preta is *awesome* -- and I want some in my garden -- but it's probably only about 2500 years old... Definitely should be possible to create it with charcoal and kitchen waste and a few years of experiments.
Wait, what?
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
They learned to improvise devices to blow up the other tribe's settlement so they could help themselves to canoes, horses and womenfolk.
>
First Researchers Discover Use of Fertilizer
After all these years, we can finally put to rest the old question:
Does the farmer shit in the field?
What does "clue in" mean in this context? Is this some neologism?
Do bears shit in the woods?
Thousands of years ago farmer raising newly domesticated cows, pigs and chickens said "Hey, what are we going to do with all this manure?"
Another farmer said, "Sell it at a premium to the organic vegan hippies. They are already used to eating shit."
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I wonder what the researchers use fertilizer for... making bombs probably. It took them quite a while to figure out what it's really for. :P
-- Cheers!
...who discovered manure! :-)
NICE