Economic Botany

Abstract

Although impossible to prove, it is reasonable to assume that the use of plants by man must date back to the origins of mankind. The earliest known record is believed to be the collection of stones (endocarps) from the fruit of Celtis australis (hackberry) plus clear evidence of the use of fire associated with the remains of Peking man (Homo erectus) from the Middle Pleistocene deposits at Zhoukoudian (Choukoutein), China (Day, 1969; Renfrew, 1973). Monod (1970) noted a similar association of endocarps of C. integrifolia with Neolithic man from the Ahaggars in central Sahara. The study of such evidence is sometimes referred to as archaeo-ethnobotany, and more often by the less clumsy palaeo-ethnobotany.