The Advanced Ethnobiological Knowledge of Ancient Peoples

Key Insight

The notion that ancient hunter-gatherers and early farmers might have overlooked useful wild species or were limited by cultural factors in adopting them is largely disproven by ethnobiological studies. These studies reveal that traditional peoples are 'walking encyclopedias' of natural history, possessing detailed knowledge of hundreds or thousands of local plant and animal species, including their biological characteristics, distribution, and potential uses, a knowledge that diminishes only as societies become increasingly dependent on domesticated foods.

A compelling example from New Guinea illustrates this depth of knowledge: when a modern ethnographer expressed concern about poisonous mushrooms, local Foré companions lectured him on 29 distinct edible mushroom species, complete with names and forest locations, demonstrating their precise understanding. Archaeological evidence from Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria, shows hunter-gatherers between 10000 and 9000 B.C. selectively gathered 157 plant species, avoiding useless or harmful ones and choosing non-poisonous, easily detoxified, or medicinally useful plants, thereby initiating the unconscious first steps of plant domestication.

Further evidence from the Jordan Valley in the ninth millennium B.C. confirms that early farmers were not 'botanical ignoramuses'. They chose barley and emmer wheat as their first domesticated cereals, which scientists later confirmed were the two best of 23 large-seeded, palatable wild grasses available. These choices were conscious and based on easily detectable criteria like seed size, palatability, and abundance, rather than an accidental process, demonstrating that early farmers possessed profound and practical knowledge of their local environment, effectively utilizing it to identify and cultivate the most suitable wild species.