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Ethnobotanical studies on cultivated plants. A theoretical approach
Newly domesticated food plant species without an ethnobotanical prehistory are surprisingly
few, if any. The sugar beet (Beta vulgaris convar. saccharata) is the last
economically important new “vege-crop” evolved during the 19 th century, but the beet
itself (B. vulgaris convar. vulgaris) has a very old ethnobotany. The triticale (Triticosecale)
emerged as a new seed crop in the mid 20 th century from artificial wheat ×
rye hybrids and has a very rudimentary ethnobotany (only some folk names), but the
parent species/genera have deep ethnobotanical roots.
The human side
Humans interacted with plants not just on individual, but mostly on group level. A
double-faced group selection occurred probably during domestication: the most explorative
human groups selected the best pre-adapted plants/animals for a given task
or environment. Successful topogenodemes had an increased reproductive success
and could co-evolve better on both sides.
On the human side, the leading force of the co-evolution was the information storage
and flow along the line of common descent, language and culture, i.e., along tribal
and “proto-ethnic” lines. Human group preferences can strongly influence plant characters.
Traditional group knowledge on plants with given “good” or “bad” characters
could influence the fate of the group. The familial, tribal, ethnic component in food
plant evolution was just one, and perhaps a small component of the process. However,
we are interested here only in this minor component.
Ethnobotany has a wide range of possible approaches and consequently many possible
definitions. According to the adepts of the first modern, North American, approach
(HARSHBERGER 1896), ethnobotany studies the plant use and “botanical”
knowledge accumulated in primitive, indigenous, aboriginal societies as opposed to
“economic botany”, i.e., the plant use and related knowledge in advanced agroindustrial
societies (ANDERSON 1993, PRANCE 1995, PRANCE et al. 1995, SCHULTES
and REIS 1995). The basic problem with this definition resides in the meaning of the
words primitive, indigenous and aboriginal, used generally instead of the word tribal.
The ethnobotany of tribal societies is in our approach a really important part, but just
a part of this science field.
For example, in Central Europe, which is now reintegrating slowly in the European
Union, tribal life is no more active. Even without tribes, there is a large indigenous
population with a rich but rapidly vanishing traditional knowledge on plants. This
knowledge has been explored quite systematically well before ethnobotany was
named as a science (DAVIS 1995).
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