MESOAMERICAN ETHNOBOTANY

Ethnobotany, as the study of interrelations between humans and plants, generally deals with such interrelationships one society at a time. This course intends to cover a larger region, Mesoamerica, to formulate a program for ethnobotanical work in a indigenous communities, and to deal with such general topics as systems of classification and nomenclature, plants and archeaology, plant cultivation, food plants, medicinal plants, entheogenic plants and divination, plants in construction, plants in cosmology and religion, plants in discourse, plants and the question of pre-columbian contacts, and the impact of humans on plants. These topics will be explored in a seminar format and exemplified from a perspective of indigenous Mesoamerican communities. No knowledge of botany is presupposed, nor is an interest in Mesoamerica required.

Bibliography (Mesoamerican Ethnobotany)

Bibliography 2 (Ethnobotany)