Ethnobotanical Methods

Researchers and Informants in Bolivia

Study of the on-going process of domestication

1. Informant interviews – especially about desired traits, planting methods, methods of selection for breeding or seed stock.

2. Participation observation3. Collection of native texts4. Field observations – grain, fruit, or vegetable

measurements; altitude, temperature, varietal flowering and maturation rates; mapping locations and distances to fields from farm or village; soil and vegetative analysis of sample fields at various stages of crop-fallow cycle.

Phytoanthropology

Phytoanthropology examines the extent of similarities and differences in the responses of various human communities to their plant neighbors, and the reasons for these human responses.

Bo Tree – Ficus religiosa

Silk Cotton Tree – Bombax ceiba

Arrowhead –Sagittaria sagittifolia

Historical Ethnobotany

Hildegard of Bingen1098 - 1179

Joseph Smith1805 - 1844

Fertile Crescent

King Assurbanipal – 668-626 BCE

In his garden with Queen and Servants

Babylonian Medicine

Datura stramonium

Cannabis sativa

Mandrake – Atropa mandragora

Mandrake – Atropa mandragora

ca. 1474

Water lily – Nymphaea alba

Vitis vinifera var. Pinot Noir

Opium poppy – Papaver somniferum

Ergot – Claviceps purpurea

Fly agaric – Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria ornaments?

SumerianHeaddress

Sun god Horus and Tuth-Shena