Merrill 



Plants and Civilizations 



of flowering plants were even then ex- 

 tant and widely distributed, many of 

 them having originated in the Creta- 

 ceous. 



One can hardly say just how long 

 man has been present, but there is 

 clear evidence that he existed as a very 

 primitive individual in the Tertiary. It 

 was not, however, until some time dur- 

 ing the Pleistocene that he commenced 

 to become a dominant factor, and even 

 here the term dominance is relative. 

 ... As long as he remained in the 

 primitive stage of nomadism, having no 

 fixed place of abode, dependent for his 

 daily food entirely on hunting, fishing 

 and such edible portions of wild plants 

 as were available to him, little definite 

 progress was possible. Thus dependent 

 on nature for his daily food, he must, 

 of necessity, follow a nomadic exist- 

 ence, for such a food supply is not 

 constant, varying from season to sea- 

 son, involving the necessity of moving 

 from place to place in search of it. It 

 was onlv well after agriculture had 

 become a definitely established art that 

 anything approaching what we call 

 civilization was possible, for agricul- 

 ture is and always has been basic to 

 advanced cultures in all parts of the 

 world. . . . 



The claim is frequently made that 

 astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, 

 but this mav be challenged if we admit 

 that agriculture and a wide knowledge 

 of the economic uses of plants are 

 sciences. Before even the most primi- 

 tive agriculture could be developed, 

 man must have acquired a vast fund of 

 knowledge about plants, their prop- 

 erties and uses; botany, if you will, or 

 at least economic botany. Essentially 

 this knowledge must have been em- 

 pirical, acquired in part bv the method 

 of trial and error, in part bv direct ob- 

 servation, but it was cumulative. This 

 applies to plants yielding edible fruits, 

 seeds, tubers, vegetative parts and even 

 flower-buds and flowers; to those vield- 



ing poisons, medicines, fibers, gums and 

 resins; and even to those yielding tim- 

 bers adapted to this or that particular 

 need. It was only on the basis of a ver\' 

 wide and intensive empirical knowl- 

 edge of plants, their products and their 

 uses, that primitive man could possibly 

 develop even the beginnings of agri- 

 culture, and these beginnings must 

 have antedated anything that we 

 should recognize as civilization by 

 many thousands of years. 



Ethnologists recognize various pe- 

 riods in man's development from a 

 thoroughly primitive nomad through 

 various stages to what we call modern 

 civilization. For several million years 

 little progress was evident. . . . 



For most of this million years up- 

 ward progress was ven' slow. Beginning 

 perhaps between 20',000 and 30,000 

 years ago, but probably earlier, more 

 definite advances were made. The use 

 of fire, the construction of shelters, the 

 use of clothing and bodily ornaments, 

 the practice of various ceremonies, 

 primitive sculpture, formal burial of the 

 dead, are some of the factors involved 

 in a very slowly unfolding civilization. 



Then came an economic revolution 

 of the greatest significance for the fu- 

 ture of the human race. Possibly be- 

 tween 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, but 

 probably earlier, although some author- 

 ities allow only 8,000 to 10,000 years, 

 agriculture became an established art, 

 and the primitive ci\ilizations based 

 on this early agriculture became an es- 

 tablished way of living. This primitive 

 agriculture was merely the successful 

 domestication of certain basic food 

 plants in certain parts of the world, 

 followed later by the successful do- 

 mestication of certain animals. This 

 step or these steps thus supplied the 

 pioneers of civilization with the advan- 

 tages of a permanent and dependable 

 food supply. Thus sedentary life be- 

 came possible, and a certain amount of 

 leisure resulting from the division of 



