Human-plant Relationships Research Articles

Farming practice, ecological temporality, and urban communities at a late Iron Age oppidum

Agriculture is a vital component of social practice, yet it is often overlooked as a key aspect in the social organisation of the communities resident at urban settlements. This paper uses the example of late Iron Age oppida, a type of settlement at the intersection of the Iron Age and Roman worlds where research has focussed upon elites rather than community. Drawing upon studies of human–plant relationships, particularly that of ecological temporalities, this paper shows that considering the capacity of plants to affect people through ‘planty agency’ renders annual rhythms of human–plant relationships perceptible. The utilisation of archaeobotanical data in this novel way provides new insights into social practices and the formation of communities at late Iron Age oppida.

치유로서의 인간-식물 관계 : 존재론적 인류학으로 다시 읽는 동아시아의학 본초론

본 논문은 최근의 존재론적 인류학 논의를 가져와서 동아시아의학 본초론을 논하고자 하는 시도이다. 한국 한의학의 한 학파에 대한 현지조사를 바탕으로 본초론의 약성가와 기미론이 드러내는 인간과 비인간 관계를 고찰해 보았다. 동아시아의학 본초론은 인간-식물 관계를 통한 치유를 바탕으로 한다. 콘(Kohn 2013)의 논의로 표현한다면, 그 관계는 인간의 상징(symbol) 기호만을 고집하지 않고 식물의 비상징 기호를 받아들이려는, 또한 비인간과의 관계를 그 존재의 방식에 수용하려는 관계적 존재론을 통해 가능해진다. 인간–식물 관계 자체가 치유로 드러나는 동아시아 관계론에서 문화와 자연은 분절되지 않는다. 동아시아의학의 근간이라고 할 수 있는 본초론을 이해하기 위해서는 서구 근대가 상정한 인간–자연, 문화–자연, 인간-비인간의 이분법을 떠날 필요가 있다. 인류학이라는 학문의 기저까지 성찰하려는 존재론적 인류학은 동아시아의학 본초에 대한 다시 읽기를 가능하게 한다. 존재론적 인류학에 곧잘 연결되는 전회라는 용어는 이전 인류학과의 거리 두기를 지시하는 간극에 대한 표현이 아니다. 인류학적 성찰성의 깊이를 지시하려는 심화에 대한 표현이다. 본 논문이 존재론적 인류학의 가능성을 예시하는데 일조할 수 있기를 고대한다.

A microCT protocol for the visualisation and identification of domesticated plant remains within pottery sherds

In tropical, arid and semi-arid environments, archaeobotanical preservation is often relatively poor and, historically, archaeobotanical extraction techniques have been inconsistently applied. As a result, the surface impressions of plants in organic-tempered pottery sherds have been relied upon to explore questions of past human-plant relationships, including domestication. Traditional imaging techniques used to study the morphology of plant impressions have significant limitations including being restricted to imaging visible external surfaces and the difficulty of analysing three-dimensional morphologies in two dimensional images. These limitations can now be overcome through microCT scanning, a major methodological advance, which is relatively non-destructive and enables high resolution and in situ, three-dimensional visualisation of internal organic inclusions and impressions. This paper outlines the protocol for image capture, visualisation and qualitative analysis of domesticated rice (Oryza sativa) spikelet bases and husks, among other organic and inorganic materials, preserved in pottery.

The ethnobotanical domain of the Swat Valley, Pakistan

BackgroundThis study contributes to the current ethnomedicinal knowledge of the Swat Valley, Pakistan. District Swat possesses remarkable biodiversity owing to its varied topographical and climatic conditions, prompting a distinct human-plant association. Our hypothesis is that the presence of such a great biodiversity has shaped into a formal ethnobotanical culture in the area transmitted through generations. We suspect that the versatility of some plant species has greater influence on the culture. Therefore, the prime objective of the study is to understand this unique human-plant relationship in the valley and to create scientific roots for the selection and practice of herbs in the ethnobotanical domain of the district.MethodsPrimary data were collected using questionnaires and face-to-face interviews with the locals. The data collected were used for calculating some important indices, i.e. relative frequency of citation (RFC), participant agreement ratio (PAR), frequency of citation (FC), Smith’s Salience Index (SI), Relative Importance Index (RII), Cultural Value Index (CVI) and a newly proposed, Ali’s Conservation Priority Index (CPI). Index scores were used as key identifier of the ethnobotanically important plants of the area.ResultsResidents of the Swat Valley have listed plant uses in 15 use categories. Around 9% of the respondents have a common consensus on the selection and use of plants for the treatment of evil eye with similar results for body cuts (8.2%) followed by psychological/neural ailments (8.0%). Respondents agree that Berberis lyceum Royle. dominates in all five indices. Skimmia laureola Franch. also constitutes one of the central plants of the ethnobotanical domain, ranking second in the SI, fifth in the RII, seventh in CVI, and third in the Cultural Importance Index. It holds the thirty-fifth position in the CPI. Over 80% of the population treat different diseases with herbal remedies. In the common ethnobotanical domain of the area, plants like Mentha longifolia L., Berberis lyceum, and Skimmia laureola are very important and have high salience and importance values, thus suggesting these plants are versatile for their uses in the study area.ConclusionIn conclusion, only some plant species are prioritised for their use in the ethnobotanical domain of the community. Medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) usage is widespread in the Swat Valley. The ethnobotanical knowledge could be used as a tool to understand the adaptability of a specific taxon in the area and the possible conservation risk to their existence.

Herding Ecologies and Ongoing Plant Domestication Processes in the Americas.

Understanding both domestication processes and agricultural practices is an interdisciplinary endeavor. Ethnographic research is potentially helpful for reconstructing past events. Such knowledge is also crucial for documenting the links between biological and cultural diversity, as well as for future purposes such as innovation in food production and sustainability. Here, we review six ethnographic case studies in different pastoral socioecological systems of the American continent. The livestock species involved include the native South American camelids and Arctic reindeer, as well as some Old World species (mainly goats, sheep, and cattle). Starting with the Columbian exchange (15th-16th centuries) and continuing up to the present, Old World herbivores launched novel uses of the local flora which resulted in entirely new livelihoods and cultures, i.e., pastoralism with its variants. Three of these case studies approach specifically how herding ecologies (human–animal–plant relationships) stirred specific management practices (human–plant relationships) that in some instances have moved toward conscious human selection of plant phenotypes. The other examples correspond to three potential instances of similar ongoing processes that we propose on the basis of ethnobotanical and ethnozoological data that were produced separately by other authors. Based on the studies we have reviewed, along with additional information from other parts of the world, we are able to conclude that: (a) New World pastoralist societies are/have been continuously adding species to the humanity’s portfolio of useful plants; (b) animals have been aiding in this processes in different ways; and, (c) how human–animal–plant relationships unfold in the present could have been similar in the past, thus analogies may be proposed for explaining prehistoric multispecies interactions and their outcomes. With our review, we intend to bring more attention to contemporary pastoralists as plant managers, animals as agents in human-plant interactions, and domestication as a behavioral complex and multispecies process that is as important in the present or future as it was in the past. Our understanding of food production practices is not only fundamental for improving our current frameworks of governance, conservation, and restoration of useful species populations, but also of biocultural diversity altogether.

Emergence of prehistoric management of plant resources during the incipient to initial Jomon periods in Japan

In Japan plant remains excavated from lowland sites have revealed that people managed and used plant resources, especially arboreal ones, around settlements since the early Jomon period starting at ca. 7000 cal yr BP. This management of arboreal resources mainly consisted of management and use of native Castanea crenata (chestnut) and introduced Toxicodendron vernicifluum (lacquer tree) resources. At present this management system seems to have been established suddenly at the beginning of the early Jomon period. This is partly due to the paucity of sites of the preceding incipient and initial Jomon periods that yielded plant materials. Even in these periods, however, people must have used and did some kind of management of plant resources, because the management system appearing in the early Jomon period seems to be too sophisticated to appear suddenly and includes various introduced plants beside the lacquer tree. To clarify the human–plant relationship during the incipient and initial Jomon periods, we reviewed the studies on plant remains carried out in central to northeastern Japan. Based on the collected materials, we discussed change in the human–plant relationship from the incipient and initial to the early Jomon periods from three points, change in the availability of Castanea crenata resources, change in people's mobility and sedentism, and submergence of sites in relation to the late Glacial to the early Holocene transgression.

“Useful to Us in Unknown Ways”: Seed Conservation and the Quest for Novel Human-Plant Relationships for the 21stCentury

Contemporary environmental threats inspire the formation of new global communities and relationships: networks that both transcend nations and local environmental interactions and forge novel assemblages of human and non-human collaborations in a bid to “reset their modes of being” (Scott 2013:864). The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP), for example, is the largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world and brings together partners from over 80 countries in an endeavor to conserve seeds from rare, wild plant species. As the potential use of the wild plant becomes increasingly central to the conservation relationship at the MSBP and implicated within a wider discourse on the neoliberalization of conservation, this paper explores how the term “use” may in fact encompass a nascent desire to reframe the human-plant relationship. By critically evaluating the values and intentions behind the quest for novel plant-uses by those who work within the MSBP, this paper examines the implications of seed-saving within a contemporary conservation institution. For those involved, rather than objectifying and creating a utilitarian relationship with nature, the concept of use is indicative of an aspiration to foster intimate, reciprocal relationships with their non-human counterparts, operating within an ontology in which humans and plants are interdependent. This paper argues that at a time when sustaining ontological diversity is key to ensuring cultural resilience and adaptation to environmental challenges, it is vital that ethnobiologists engage not only with traditional models, but also explore what innovative, intentional relationships with nature may be emerging from within conservation.

Radical Acts of Cultivation:

ABSTRACT Ruth Ozeki structures the narrative of All Over Creation around the cultivation of a transgenic food crop, which provokes a debate exploiting a number of widespread representations of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The article focuses on the anti-GMO rhetoric, which offers a utopian discourse of agriculture clearly embedded within the pastoral convention, with genetic modification techniques represented as an intrusive “machine in the garden” and the mythological figure of the farmer exploited to fit the scope of the American context of the story. Exposing the conventions and mythologies behind the environmentalist narrative against the genetic engineering of plants, Ozeki's text demonstrates how the contrasting anti-GMO utopianism and pro-GMO techno-utopianism are both deeply rooted in the Western tradition, with its cultural and linguistic tendencies to objectify nature and conceptualize it as a female. Examining the value of genetically modified crops to different social groups, Ozeki's narrative accurately represents the complexities surrounding the contemporary practice of agriculture and opens up a discursive space for reformulating the rarely explored human–plant relationship, suggesting that neither kind of utopianism can serve as a conceptual framework for assessing the potential dangers and benefits of the introduction of GMOs into ecosystems and human bodies.

Politicising plants: Dwelling and invasive alien species in domestic gardens in Norway

Qvenild, M., Setten, G. & Skår, M. 2014. Politicising plants: Dwelling and invasive alien species in domestic gardens in Norway. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 68, 22–33. ISSN 0029-1951.The article investigates how domestic gardeners in Oppland County, Norway, engage with plants and with ‘invasive alien species’ as defined by the national environmental authorities. The spread of invasive alien plants from domestic gardens may represent a threat to native biodiversity, and environmental authorities currently face a challenge in communicating this risk to domestic gardeners operating within their relatively autonomous garden spaces. The authors demonstrate how biodiversity politics and human–plant relationships meet, or fail to meet, in domestic gardens. Empirically, they draw on talking-whilst-walking interviews held with selected domestic gardeners, and they were inspired by Ingold's notion of dwelling in combination with more-than-human geography, which enabled them to analyse how, through embodied practices, domestic gardeners relate to plants as well as to the terms developed within natural science (i.e. alienness, nativeness, and invasiveness). The main finding is that gardeners in Oppland are not concerned about the geographical origin of garden plants, but rather focus on the plants' attributes, such as invasiveness and adaptability to a harsh climate. Insights into how the terminology used by environmental authorities corresponds to domestic gardeners' interaction with garden plants may provide input into the improvement of communication strategies directed towards domestic gardeners regarding invasive alien species issues.

From 32 Ounces to Zero: A Medical Geographic Study of Dispensing a Cultivated Batch of “Plum” Cannabis Flowers to Medical Marijuana Patients in Washington State

The medicinal use of cannabis is a growing phenomenon in the U.S. predicated on the success of overcoming specific spatial challenges and establishing particular human-environment relationships. This article takes a medical geographic “snapshot” of an urban site in Washington State where qualifying chronically ill and debilitated patients are delivered locally produced botanical cannabis for medical use. Using interview, survey, and observation, this medical geographic research project collected information on the social space of the particular delivery site and tracked the production cost, reach, and health value of a 32-ounce batch of strain-specific medical cannabis named “Plum” dispensed over a four-day period. A convenience sample of 37 qualifying patients delivered this batch of cannabis botanical medicine was recruited and prospectively studied with survey instruments. Results provide insight into patients' self-rated health, human-plant relationships, and travel-to-clinic distances. An overall systematic geographic understanding of the medical cannabis delivery system gives a grounded understanding of the lengths that patients and care providers go, despite multiple hurdles, to receive and deliver treatment with botanical cannabis that relieves diverse symptoms and improves health-related quality-of-life.

Requiem for the weeds: Reflections in Amsterdam city park

Abstract Human and plant relationships are described within the rich tradition of multispecies ethnography, ethnobotany, and political ecology. In theorizing this relationship, the issues of functionalism, and interconnectivity are raised. This article aims to re-examine the position of plants in the context of contemporary urban spaces through the prism of environmental ethics. Despite conceptual plurality and socio-cultural complexity of human–plant relationships, social scientists fail to note how the perception of ‘greenery’ has objectified plants in urban environment. Without seriously considering bioethics, theories of human–plant relationship might fail to note exploitive anthropocentric relationship between humans and plants in urban spaces. The article is inspired by reflections of urban flora in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

品種分類に映し出される人びとと植物との関わり

品種分類に映し出される人びとと植物との関わり

Human-plant relationships during the Copper and Bronze Ages in the Baza and Guadix basins (Granada, Spain)

SummaryThe anthracological study of six sites in the north of province of Granada (Spain) has uncovered vegetation for the Copper Age formed by a dense oak grove belonging to the association Rhamno-Quercetum cocciferae. In the Bronze Age, the intensification of agriculture caused changes in the vegetation, reflected in the anthracological diagrams by the increase in Pinus halepensis and the decrease of Quercus ilex-coccifera, as well a decline in the woodlands and an expansion of the legumes.The different species present in the vicinity of the site (or in a greater radius), servings such specific functions as the making of tools and utensils, house construction, and firewood for the hearth or for fours, give us preliminary insights into the ways in which these populations used space and their vegetal environment.