BBC: The Secret of El Dorado
December 19, 2006

In 1542, the Spanish Conquistador, Francisco de Orellana ventured along the Rio Negro, one of the Amazon Basin's great rivers. Hunting a hidden city of gold, his expedition found a network of farms, villages and even huge walled cities. At least that is what he told an eager audience on his return to Spain.

"No one ever saw again what Orellana described"
Dr James Petersen, University of Vermont
The prospect of gold drew others to explore the region, but none could find the people of whom the first Conquistadors had spoken. The missionaries who followed a century later reported finding just isolated tribes of hunter-gatherers. Orellana's story seemed to be no more than a fanciful myth.

A proven liar?

Black C Effects on the Biogeochemical Cycling of Soil Nutrients and Organic C in Amazonian Dark Earths (Terra Preta De Indo)
Biqing Liang, Graduate Student, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell University, 9/21/2006,Crop and Soil Sciences Seminar Series, Cornell University. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Abstract:

Terra Preta de Indio
Johannes Lehmann. Soil Biogeochemistry, Cornell University January 2007

"Terra Preta de Indio" (Amazonian Dark Earths; earlier also called "Terra Preta do Indio" or Indian Black Earth) is the local name for certain dark earths in the Brazilian Amazon region. These dark earths occur, however, in several countries in South America and probably beyond. They were most likely created by pre-Columbian Indians from 500 to 2500 years B.P. and abandoned after the invasion of Europeans (Smith, 1980; Woods et al., 2000). However, many questions are still unanswered with respect to their origin, distribution, and properties.

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