Introduction and Definition
Paleoethnobotany is the study of behavioral and ecological interactions between past peoples and plants, documented through the analysis of pollen grains, charred seeds and wood, phytoliths, and residues (Ford 1979; Hastorf & Popper 1988; Warnock 1998; Pearsall 2000). It uses an ecological approach to elucidate the nature of human–plant interaction, seeking to understand not only which plants were used in construction and manufacturing, as food or fuel, in religious observation, or as medicines, but also how they were used and why some plants had such uses while others did not. It seeks to explore how the range of taxa present in an area and their season of availability structured settlement patterns and subsistence practices. It documents the effects that past human populations, cultures, or groups may have had on the distribution of particular plant taxa and their impacts on plant communities and the environment in general. Paleoethnobotany is not about...
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Stuart, G.S.L. (2014). Paleoethnobotany. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2412
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