Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany is the study of a people’s traditional customs and knowledge of native plants, including their medical and religious uses. The term ethnobotany was coined by J.M. Harshberger in 1895. He was an American botanist at the University of Pennsylvania. The field encompasses anthropology, archaeology, botany, economics, geography, landscape architecture, linguistics, medicine, and pharmacology. It is a branch of ethnobiology, the study of interrelationships between human cultures and the organisms in their environment.

People in various regions and belonging to specific cultures have developed uses of plants for dyes, food, medicine, gums, oils, shelters, tannins, and many other purposes over the centuries. Some plants are also important in rituals. Ethnobotanists are interested in how and why people value some plants and desire to rid themselves of others.

The human traditions associated with indigenous plants have developed over millennia. They were unique to the cultures and peoples of a region, although in modern times contact between cultures has expanded the availability of some plants and increased knowledge of their uses. Anthropologists can only speculate about plant usage in prehistoric times, based on artifacts and plant matter found at archaeological sites. Early humans would have discovered medicinal uses of plants based on trial and error rather than careful research. These discoveries would then have been passed down through an individual’s family or tribe.

Background

Humans learned to use plants through trial and error. Plant foods were required for survival—nuts and berries, for example, were staple foods in many lands, and humans learned which were safe to eat. Other plants had beneficial properties which people may have discovered by observing animals eating them, or by ingesting or applying them. For example, many cultures have traditionally used certain plants with astringent properties, such as witch hazel bark. Medicines made with these plants could be applied to wounds or used to treat skin conditions. Researchers found a number of natural compounds in a 50,000-year-old tooth abscess in Spain, including poplar, a tree that contains salicylic acid, the pain-killer used in aspirin. The related remains also contained traces of Penicillium, a fungus that in the nineteenth century was found to have curative properties.

Many animals self-medicate to treat ailments. For example, chimpanzees in central Africa that are infected with intestinal parasites will fold up and swallow prickly leaves, which catch the worms and carry them out with the next bowel movement. Early humans may have observed these sorts of animal behaviors and copied them.

People who learned to use plants medicinally became revered in many cultures. They may have been called shamans or witch doctors. They learned to forage for or grow plants they needed, and learned to prepare and apply them. This medicinal use often included aspects of spiritualism, and certain plants may have been deemed off-limits except for sacred ceremonies. Fragrant herbs, for example, may have been burned during ceremonies, or specific combinations of herbs and roots may have been used in healing.

Humans have used plant materials for many purposes, including housing, hunting, and storing. About 26,000 years ago, humans began weaving plant fibers. They made cords and probably began weaving baskets. With cords, humans could make nets and strengthen structures. About 12,000 years ago, humans began growing plants and herding animals. This changed local landscapes and human traditions. Agricultural societies settled down in villages, which grew to become towns and cities. More food meant healthier and larger populations, and better means of production allowed people to diversify their skills. Interregional travel and trade spread plants and knowledge of their uses for food, medicine, dyes, and other purposes.

Trade between cultures and later across oceans increased the available variety of foods, including crop plants. Corn, for example, was a staple crop in the Americas; when Europeans began exploring the American continents in the late fifteenth century, they carried corn and other plants to Europe, where people began to grow many of these crops.

Overview

Ethnobotany studies use folk medicines as well as archaeological evidence to explore botanical knowledge of social groups. The study seeks to locate plants in cultural context and people in their ecological contexts. Ethnobotanists are interested in all facets of life and how plants may play a part in them. This includes social events, daily life and cooking, medicine, spirituality, housing, hunting, art, and cultural pursuits, such as the development of papyrus into paper for recording information. They are interested in plants that cultures value—including the plants they cultivate—and those they seek to destroy.

Ethnobotanists are also concerned with how plants shape geopolitics; for example, the spices so coveted by Europeans helped to bring about the Age of Exploration in the early fifteenth century. The demand for recreational chemicals has also affected trade and travel. For instance, some societies have cultivated coffee and tea for caffeine, while many New World settlements relied on tobacco, the source of nicotine, as a cash and trade crop.

Ethnobotanists use a variety of means to uncover information about cultures. Some isolated cultures remain apart from modern medicine and science. Anthropologists may visit such groups and observe their use of plant materials. Researchers may study travelers’ journals to understand the uses of specific plants in cultures when they first encountered outsiders, or examine botanical sketches and studies. Historic writings, such as those of doctors in the Middle Ages or ancient Greeks and Romans, offer clues as to plant uses in those and other cultures. Archaeological evidence from garbage dumps, prehistoric pottery, structures, and other artifacts provides clues to the plants used and grown, and possibly the applications of some plants, that aids modern researchers in understanding ancient societies. Religious writings and artifacts of spiritual ceremonies may also provide insight into the importance of certain plants.

Ethnobotany also explores modern and future relationships between people and plants. For example, indigenous food production could help in developing sustainable agriculture. Traditional medicines may lead to the development of new pharmaceuticals.

Bibliography

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