Terra Preta de Índio as an Emergent Ecological State: Reclassifying a Path-Dependent Attractor from Constructible Substrate

Stuart Lance Wilkins

Terra Preta de Índio (Amazonian Dark Earth) has resisted reproducible replication despite decades of study. This manuscript advances a structured, falsifiable hypothesis rather than reporting new primary empirical data. It proposes that Terra Preta is not a replicable soil substrate but an emergent ecological state arising from path-dependent processes operating over centuries. Unlike conventional soils occupying transient equilibria, Terra Preta appears to occupy a deep attractor basin characterized by persistent fertility, resistance to leaching, and biological self-regulation. Repeated replication failures through biochar-centered approaches are reinterpreted as evidence of structural misalignment between compositional models and the dynamical architecture of an emergent system.
Drawing on complex adaptive systems theory and empirical evidence from archaeological and microbial ecology, this work argues that carbon functions as long-term infrastructure rather than sufficient cause, and that stability arises from distributed microbial regulation rather than optimized inputs. An operationalized dynamical model generates quantitatively distinct predictions regarding resistance, hysteresis, and basin transitions that discriminate the attractor hypothesis from compositional optimization. The framework is falsifiable: successful reproduction of self-sustaining fertility within decadal timescales through compositional manipulation alone would refute the emergent state interpretation. This framework defines testable structural criteria under which multistability could be empirically established or rejected. It does not claim demonstrated multistability in Terra Preta systems.
Keywords: Terra Preta; biochar; emergent ecological state; attractor dynamics; path dependence; soil multistability