Black Forest & Steel Cakes ~ Part 3/3

Iron smelting & forest degradation almost 200 years ago? This report explores a passage from Mysore Gazetteer. Tracking Francis Buchanan's Journey of 1800-01 through iron making areas of Tumkur and Chitradurga districts we found remnants of traditional iron smelting. We realized that our pre-railways past may not have bean as green as we had imagined.

http://francisbuchanan.blogspot.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• iron
• smelting
• Buchanan
• karnataka
• forest
• deforestation
• environment
• sashi
• sivramkrishna
• charcoal

[sw8741]

the myth of the premodern world as being pristine is completely false unless you are talking 2,000 + yrs ago.  everyone used wood for cooking and housing, it had to come from somewhere. as the population grew, more and more wood would be required. trees don't grow fast or replenish quickly. more land needed to be cleared for crops and with completely inefficient methods of producing iron, more wood. its not too hard to see. just today we are blinded by myth, once again.

[silver760]

Superb film,gives a real insight into older technologies and as said,deforestation and industrial landscapes existed long before the industrial revoloution with which we associate them.