Economic botany

Plant and Prehistory

Preagricultural uses of plants:
___ Civilization would impossible without agriculture
___ People and their ancestors depend for food upon their
activities as a gatherers and hunters.
____After Glacial ice retreated life began in Europe 10,000
years ago
____ hunting life was based on the gathering shellfish, fishing,
or the hunting, plant seed.
Early Paleolithic man was able to eat berries for sugars and
vitamins nuts for oil and grass seed,various roots which
furnished starches as carbohydrate source,he depend on meat
for most of his protein
___ Tool making, built houses, clothing from the skin of
.animals
The Origin of Agriculture
Until present century, most ideas about the beginning of
agriculture were European origin.
A.Since much of the archaeological evidence has been found there
B. Immediately adjacent areas of the western Asia and North
Africa.
Pressure upon emergent man to utilize plants for more than just a
supply of fruits,seeds and roots undoubtedly began earlier in
colder regions than it did in the tropics.
In tropics one may live unclothed and unsheltered and have little
need for fuel-consuming fire.
By contrast in the later stages of the last glacial advances perhaps
20,000 years ago at least European man used fire to keep
.warm.Then man used wood in making framework for shelters
Man hunted animals in unfrosted areas where caves in
particulars, would have been utilized for shelter.
Paleolithic painting shows the early man houses which made
from flimsy material and it was not well done.
* The human being used plants in making houses,baskets the
best example of plants is Scirpus acutus
* Humen being have collected grass seeds for food e.g Zizania
aquatica wild rice
The seed of wild plants might spread around the houses and the
settlements, the seed germinate to produce more healthy plants
and more products.So the process might early have suggested to
early man idea of deliberately sowing seed in order to produce
highly yielding plants in proximately to his habitation
It seem most likely that food production rather than
collection , began 9000B.C. in south west Asia spreading
through Eastern Europe.
In Mesolithic age 8000B.C may have provided an abundance of
aquatic habitats and good fishing led to foundation of
communities of people that stayed in one place.
Rubbish piles rich in organic nitrogen abundantly available ,
around settlements some plants grow pompously such as
hemp(Cannabis sativa (nitrophiles)) grow as weeds in rubbish
piles. A circumstance that could have led to their eventual
.cultivation
Multipurpose plants
An important feature of the early cultivated plants is that they
have many uses
Hemp Cannabis sativa used as
1-fiber
2-drug
3- source of oil from their seed .
The Baobab tree (Adansonia digitata)
1-Rope can be made from its bark
2-Leaves can be dried and used as medicine
3-Seed can be source of oil
4-Pulp in which they are embedded contain tataric acid and
vitamin C
5-Empty trunk can be used as water store
.6-dead may be allowed to mummify inside a baobab trunk
It seem most likely that food production rather than collection ,
began 9000B.C. in south west Asia spreading through Eastern
Europe.
In Mesolithic age 8000B.C may have provided an abundance of
aquatic habitats and good fishing led to foundation of
communities of people that stayed in one place.
Rubbish piles rich in organic nitrogen abundantly available ,
around settlements some plants grow pompously such as
hemp(Cannabis sativa (nitrophiles)) grow as weeds in rubbish
piles. A circumstance that could have led to their eventual
.cultivation
In china Mulberry tree Morus alba(moraceae ) used since
antiquity grow around the villages. Used for
1-fruit is excellent for human consumption
2-The leaves are food for silk warms
3-It is valuable and yellow dye can be extracted from its root.
Coconut palm for coastal people throughout the tropical region.
The genus Agave are renowned(Famous) as having a thousand
uses.
We may assume that plants whose primary value is as food for
those which to which attention was given first.
Man can go naked in the tropics and can wear animal skin in
colder region; there is no place in the world where he can do
without food
Root crop and cereal crop
* It has been suggested , with a very little evidence that root
crops were probably first cultivated in humid southern Asia
between 13000 and 9000 B.c.
The use of root is simple form of agriculture, The Taro Colocasia
esculanta(Areaceae) Asian root crop
extremely similar to west Indian Tania Xanthosoma sagittifolium.
Another root crop Ocatubers Oxalis tuberosa
Cereal can have many advantages as food plants parts
1-high yield per acre
2- are compact and dry and they store well
3-they contain carbohydrates fats proteins minerals and vitamins
.and thus truly can be called the staff of life
Tillering
Cereals cultivation can be in or near mountainous region
Small seed cereals (Millets)
1-Panicum
2-Pennisetum
large seeded cereals : large grain appears to have been developed
in Ethiopia e.g Abyssinia.
Antiquity of cereals is discovered in Iran 9000 years ago. The main
cereal of the American continental is Maze which may developed
in Amazon side of Andes, Mexico.
Rice found in tropical and subtropical from the hilly and lowland of
Asia
The development of irrigation system, only then was possible for
the civilization that appeared in the valleys of the Indus ,
Tigris,Euphrates and Nile rivers to develop.
Assyrian and Babylonian irrigation systems were particularly
impressive , utilizing canals lined 1800 B.C. they watered 10,000
square miles.
Oryza glaberrima west Africa
Oryza sativa common rice of the rest of the word.
O.indicus and O.jabonica is developed from it.
.The most obviously promoted civilization in Asia is the rice
Most rice in Asia is paddy rice, paddy rice gives higher yields , can
be raised in seed beds and later transplanted into the field.
In dry tropical regions,shifting cultivation with suitable plants as
root crop some cereals and pannanas.
Nicolai vaviloves contribution
The separation of primary crop plants from those that could be
classed as secondary.
Secondary crop plants: those that have developed from weeds
growing among the primary crop plants.
Wheat carried northward over Europe with the spread of neolithic
Agriculture from the Mediterranean region.
Barley and wheat are primary crop plants , Oats and rye are
.secondary