Plants, people, and place: complex, mutualistic, and co-evolving global patterns through time

- Van Wijk, Yvette Ethné

Title
Plants, people, and place: complex, mutualistic, and co-evolving global patterns through time
Creator
Van Wijk, Yvette Ethné
ThesisAdvisor
Barker, Nigel
ThesisAdvisor
Cocks, Michelle
Subject
Ethnobotany -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Subject
Khoisan (African people) -- Ethnobotany
Subject
Human-plant relationships -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Subject
Plants -- Classification -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Subject
Plant remains (Archaeology) -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Subject
Ethnoscience -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Subject
Regression analysis
Date
2019
Type
text
Type
Thesis
Type
Doctoral
Type
PhD
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10962/76575
Identifier
vital:30609
Description
My thesis studies and analyses the suite of distinctive plant taxa which persist in small patches of vegetation growing in close association with archaeological habitation sites in the southern Cape, South Africa. The unexpected correlation and overlap between botanical taxa collected at 75 site complexes, and ethnobotanical data collected in collaboration with modern Khoi-San communities in the same area, is explored and interrogated. Although sparse, reports of the same suite of taxa recovered from archaeological excavations in the Cape provinces provides depth of time to the study, linking the past to the present. The three-way correlation of a suite of plants closely associated with humans and habitation sites through time, allows for triangulation of the data in order to validate and cross verify the results using more than one frame of reference. Both the plants and the knowledge about their uses have persisted in spite of historical attrition, and alienation of land and language, suffered by the Khoi-San over the past 300 years. Drawing on a large body of primary and secondary data, and using an interdisciplinary, abductive and pragmatic mixed methods approach, a pattern can be traced throughout Africa and globally. Regression analysis strongly indicates that the most ubiquitous taxa were selected for a purpose and are not randomly present in association with humans. Botanical, anthropological, and archaeological studies seldom focus on the inter-connectedness of people and plants at the sites they inhabited. Very little research into modern vegetation in close association with the sites has been undertaken, and vegetation mapping has not captured the occurrence of these site-specific small vegetation patches recorded during my surveys. The topographically, geologically, and vegetatively complex and varied southern Cape, and greater Cape area, is extremely rich in archaeological sites and history. This study suggests that the value of site-specific plant taxa to humans throughout the aeons of pre-agricultural history, persists into the present. Due to tolerance of a broad range of climatic and environmental variables, there is value in the study of these ancient and neglected useful plants in the face of climate change. That this vegetation is so closely associated with archaeological sites of cultural and historic importance confers an urgency to recognising the existence and significance of the distinctive and possibly anthropogenic vegetation surrounding the sites.
Format
277 pages, pdf
Publisher
Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Botany, Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology
Language
English
Rights
van Wijk, Yvette Ethné
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Thumbnail File Description Size Format
SOURCE1 Adobe Acrobat PDF 10 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE2 Appendix A -Table A1 1008 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE3 Appendix A-Table A2 84 KB application/octet-stream
SOURCE4 Appendix A-Table A3 465 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE5 Appendix B-Table B1 222 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE6 Appendix C-Table C1 186 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE7 Appendix D-Table D1 436 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE8 Appendix D-Table D2 64 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE9 Appendix E 153 KB Excel Microsoft Office Open XML Format document
SOURCE10 Appendix F-2004-Imithi Amayeza 1 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE11 Appendix F-2008 Medicinal plants 3 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE12 Appendix F-2014-Links 2 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE13 Appendix F-2014-Cryptic Anthropogenic 4 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE14 Appendix F-2015 Caves in the Forest 2 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE15 Appendix F-2015 Planting an Idea 3 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE16 Appendix F-2016 Relationship between plants 2 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE17 Appendix F-2017 Gatherers at Klasies River 3 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
SOURCE18 Appendix F-2017 Plants, People and place 2 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF
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