How and when did man start using plants. Plants and man: general information

Tikhomirova Anastasia Pavlovna

Man has long used a significant number wild plants. They brought him wood for fires; served as material for the construction of dwellings and pens for animals; man made fishing tackle and hunting tools from plants; built boats and rafts, weaved mats and baskets, prepared various household and ritual decorations; fed plants to animals and birds, dug up roots and harvested fruits for food and medicine. A man took refuge in the forests from bad weather, hid from enemies and predatory animals. In a word, the whole life of primitive man was connected with plants. And the more diverse was the world of plants that surrounded man, the more widely he used plant resources for his needs.

Subsequently, when a person began to grow some of the plants useful to him near his dwellings, that is, he began to engage in agriculture, he laid the foundations of plant growing, although he continued to use the gifts of wild nature.

At present, mankind continues to widely use plants for their needs. At the same time, the natural vegetation cover is gradually changing. Forest areas are decreasing, treeless spaces are increasing, some plants that were once widespread on Earth are disappearing and not being restored. Although this process of destruction of the original natural vegetation is gradually progressing, nevertheless, there are still many plant species that continue to be of great economic importance for human life.

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Plants in human history In 1157 AD. The Chinese emperor Jen Tsu ordered a new work on the formakope. Over 1,000 plant species were described during his lifetime.

1492 Columbus leaves Spain in search of a western route to India. From the New World, he brings to Europe a new grain crop - corn and other plants. During his second expedition in 1493, Columbus brought sugar cane to Santo Domingo. Settler Agvilon reports that he harvested rich crops on his plot. sugar cane getting sweet juice from it. In 1516, the first sugar made from cane was shipped to Spain. Soon after, Portugal began importing sugar from Brazil. Sugar cane could become driving force labor trade.

Columbus also brought pineapple and capsicum to Spain, spicier than those in the Caucasus. This pepper was introduced in Spain in 1493, has been known in England since 1548 and has been cultivated in Central Europe since 1585. Columbus also brought cucumbers and other vegetables to America.

1497-98 Vasco da Gamma opened a trade route for Portugal to India through the Cape of Good Hope, bypassing Asia Minor. This deprived Venice of its monopoly on the trade in sugar and spices.

1500 Beans, native to America, became known in Europe. At the same time, it was brought to Spain from South America yam (sweet potato), which later came to China, India, Malaysia, where it became widespread.

1505 The first black slaves are brought to America. The slave trade began to develop actively due to the fact that the plantations of sugar cane and cotton in the New World required laborers.

Rice was cultivated in China 7,000 years ago. Headed cabbage also occupied a significant place in the diet of the ancient Chinese, the diet of which was at least ¼.

Flax has been known for 9000 years in Syria and Turkey. Apparently, it was he who was here the main material for the production of fabrics.

In the Middle East, 10,000 years ago, people cultivated wheat and barley. At that time, barley was the daily food of man. Archaeologists have discovered the first flour-grinding stones.

Excavations in the Shanidar cave (Northern Iraq) testify that at that time, about 50,000 years ago, local residents ate chestnut seeds and walnut fruits.

Sorghum was already being grown in North Africa 5,000 years ago.

4,000 years ago (2000 BC) millet was already grown in North Africa.

1519 circumnavigation, to explore new trade routes, went Magellan. Three years later, only 18 people out of 250 and one ship out of five returned from this expedition. But they brought with them 26 tons of cloves, bags of nutmegs and citrus fruits, and sandalwood wood. The proceeds more than covered all the expenses of the expedition.

Pigafett, sailing with Magellan, wrote: “In the Moluccas, we found cloves, ginger, sago palm, wood that is like bread.” He also writes: “Betel is a fruit that they, the natives, chew along with jasmine and orange flowers” Cannibals on the island did not consume any parts of the human body, except for the heart, which they soaked in lemon or orange juice.

1516 Bananas are brought to the New World from Africa.

1514 Alliance became the first European to reach China by sea. In China, the Portuguese discovered oranges, fruits from India and Ceylon.

1521 Cortes lands in Mexico. His soldiers are introduced to the spices and vanilla of the Aztecs.

1532 Francesco Pizarro landed in Peru when the Spanish Conquest in Peru ended four years later. Potatoes became common and cheap food for soldiers and sailors.

Plants are a source of oxygen on Earth, are very important in shaping the climate and generally make people's lives comfortable. Hundreds of years ago, plants were the material for the construction of dwellings, they were used for food, firewood was harvested from trees, tools for everyday life and hunting were made. Nothing has changed to this day. How does a person use plants in his life? Reading books, buying leather products, some do not even realize that all these are products of the plant world. Russia is the richest country not only in terms of natural resources, but also in terms of the diversity of vegetation. Mosses, lichens, almost all species deciduous trees- all this property can be seen in the vast country.

All plants can be conditionally divided into types, depending on the scope of application. Some plants are used for firewood and production. building materials, others are food products (vegetables, fruits), others are used in pharmaceutical and chemical industry(tar, tar), the fourth subspecies refers to animal feed. Do not forget about the plants that flaunt on our windowsills. A person uses them for decorative purposes to please the eye.

Connection plant man very strong. A person bears both permissive and constructive influence. The pace of industrial growth is making itself felt. Hectares of forests are cut down, some plant species disappear altogether. But fortunately vegetable world has the ability to recover. In place of the felled tree, a new one will grow, although this will take many years. But it is plants that are a source of vitamins, trace elements, so necessary for the human body. Traditional medicine is full of recipes based on vegetable oils. The composition of many medicines includes the roots, stems of plants.

You can also evaluate how animals affect plants. Animal world diverse, its representatives affect the plant world in different ways. Some insects such as caterpillars, ants can cause damage to the whole forest. Caterpillars are able to leave a tree completely without leaves. The larvae of the May beetle feed on the roots of plants, thereby destroying them. But on the other hand, one can also see the positive effect of insects on vegetation. For example, the process of pollination or transfer of seeds is the merit of butterflies, bumblebees, and bees. Although the wind also takes part in this, insects definitely make their contribution.

How do plants adapt to external conditions in different latitudes of our vast Motherland? In the process of evolution, plants "learned" to adapt to different weather and climatic conditions. This was reflected in their appearance. For example, in places with a hot climate, plants have small leaves. How did plants with thorns appear? It all happened through the process of evolution. The leaf was transformed into a thorn due to lack of moisture. Shedding leaves is one way for a plant to survive. No leaves - no life, all processes freeze, the tree goes into hibernation.

The emergence of agriculture is rightfully considered a turning point in history. The independent formation of the agricultural way of life in the most favorable centers for this (in Mesopotamia, North Africa, the Balkans) about 10 thousand years BC. e. led to the emergence of the first civilizations. Their existence and change, in turn, determined the entire subsequent history of mankind. The beginning of this process is associated with the "Neolithic Revolution" as a sharp change in lifestyle.

The period preceding this was traditionally considered and is considered as the dominance of the "appropriating" - hunting and gathering - economy. Subsequent changes are associated mainly with changes in the composition of commercial animal species. Gathering has always been assigned a secondary role - largely due to the fact that it was practically not represented in the archaeological material and all discussions about it were based on ethnographic analogies and the "principle of actualism": plant foods are present in the diet of all known peoples, including the population Far North.

In the 70s of the last century, the Leningrad archaeologist A. N. Rogachev put forward a hypothesis about “complicated collecting” in the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age, 2.6 million years ago - 10 thousand years BC).

Rogachev considered "complicated collecting" initial stage formation of the agricultural system.

Pestle graters: Kostenki 16 (~30 thousand years) - top row; Kostenki 14 (layer in the ashes ~40 thousand years) - bottom row

The reason for this was the presence in the inventory of a number of Paleolithic sites in Eastern Europe of specific stone tools - pestles and grater pestles (in the figure), presumably associated with the preparation (grinding to a state of flour) of plant products for long-term storage. Their presence in the cultural layers of the Early Upper and even the Middle Paleolithic testified to a long "preparatory" period for the formation of agriculture.

Modern research has shown that grater pestles existed long time and in large areas (from the Atlantic to Transbaikalia, from the early Upper Paleolithic to ethnographic modernity). They were not directly linked to any of the known cultural traditions. This means that plant processing was widespread (if not ubiquitous) in the Paleolithic. However, the tools associated with it reach archaeologists relatively rarely, perhaps because of their special significance for ancient man.

Until recently, the connection of grater pestles with plant processing remained only a hypothesis due to the lack of methods for its direct proof. Moreover, completely different functions were attributed to grater pestles, for example, rubbing mineral paints.

Possibility exact definition appeared relatively recently thanks to analytical studies using modern microscopes, carried out by a group of Italian researchers from the University of Florence.

On stone artifacts from the Bilancino Paleolithic site (25,000 years old), comparable in shape and size to pestles, the remains of a marsh plant of the cattail family (Typhaceae) were determined from starch residues.

At the initiative of Italian scientists, the study was expanded by attracting materials from the Pavlov 6 site (Moravia, Czech Republic) and the Kostenki 16 site (Voronezh region, Russia), where outwardly similar tools were found. Analytical studies have confirmed their connection with the processing of plant resources. A generalized study, which analyzed the source from all three ancient monuments, was published in today's issue Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

The choice of the Kostenkovskaya group of sites for this study is not accidental. It is due to the variety of components of material culture:

currently on relatively small area 26 Paleolithic sites are known in the villages of Kostenki and Borshchevo!

Almost half of them are multi-layered, that is, they contain the remains of several cultural layers - the remains of settlements. In total, about 60 settlements are represented here. Thanks to the unique conditions, almost all types of archaeological sources can be found in Kostenki. In addition to flint and bone implements and faunistic (simply speaking, kitchen) remains, which are common for Paleolithic sites, these are numerous collections of jewelry and works of art, including figurines of "Paleolithic Venuses", remains of residential domestic structures from mammoth bones, anthropological remains, including the most ancient burials ...

Tools associated with the processing of plant resources are far from the first place on this list. Until recently, their significance for the reconstruction of the household activity of a Paleolithic person was limited to ascertaining their presence. The fact that a person rubbed paints, used abrasives to sharpen bone tools, different kinds chippers, retouchers for the manufacture of stone tools, with a high degree of certainty could be assumed by the presence of paints and sharpened bone tools, even in the absence of graters, abrasives and chippers in the available material. With tools for processing plant resources, the situation is much more complicated, since the final product obtained as a result of this type of household activity is not presented in the material that has come down to the archaeologist.

Kostenki 16.

On the surface of one of the tools from the Kostenki 16 site, Italian paleobotanists found particles of starch from several plant species, including the grapevine (Botrychium), a plant from the genus Ferns (illustration 6 of the photo gallery). This plant is present in the sediments of the cultural layer and indicates rather severe climatic conditions comparable to the modern climate of the tundra.

“We were able to show that the found pestles were used specifically for processing plants,

in another, independent way - with the help of the so-called trace analysis. The uniqueness of our method is the study of tools from the point of view of their functional purpose, that is, an attempt to understand what this or that object was used for.

This method was invented by the Russian archaeologist Sergei Semyonov (by the way, this is the only method invented in Russian archeology that has become widespread in the West). Traces of work always remain on the tool, appearing as a result of the friction of the tool on the material being processed. Based on these traces (they are called traces), one can judge the purpose of the tool, its function. Such analyzes are carried out by a special science - archaeological traceology.

In order to have an evidence base - to substantiate the fact that certain routes belong to a particular type of activity - many experiments were carried out on the manufacture of tools and their processing different materials. This is how such a reference collection was created, that is, a collection of samples - replicas of tools, modified by processing different materials. When we find tools in excavations, we look at them through a microscope and, comparing them with our standards, determine the function of the found archaeological sites.

Thus, we were able to accurately confirm that ancient people used plants in their daily activities already in the Paleolithic era.

Similar results were obtained by Laura Longo (Museum of Natural History of Verona) in the study of tools from the sites of Pavlovo 6 and Belancino.

These works show that the "Neolithic Revolution" is the result of a long evolutionary process of the formation of ways of processing and storing plant residues over a long period of time.

Our cooperation with Italian colleagues is very old: Professor Laura Longo had an internship in our laboratory several decades ago. Since then we have been working together.

Unfortunately, often the issue of cooperation rests on funding. In the Russian Humanitarian Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation and the Russian Foundation fundamental research) there are international programs, but it is very difficult to “break through” them. Actually, there are especially few humanitarian projects. I would like, of course, that through these grants, cooperation could be consolidated in the longer term.”

Prepared by Alexandra Borisova

People have been using plants since time immemorial. At first, they only collected parts of plants in wild nature, and then, when they became settled, they also began to cultivate them, and thus agriculture appeared.

Different areas of application of plants

Plants play an extremely important role in human life. AT different parts planets, regardless of each other, people have learned to cultivate plants and use them to meet their needs. According to the scope of application, plants can be divided into several main groups, such as edible, collected for building materials, paints, threads, for use in medicine, etc.
The most widely cultivated are the plants that are taken as food. They form the basis of the human diet. Common agricultural plants include species such as:

• Wheat;
• Corn;
• Potato;
• Cotton;
• Mango.

These and many other plants are cultivated in different regions of the planet and make up a large percentage of imports for those countries in whose territories they can grow. Various parts of plants are eaten, such as fruits, roots, leaves, seeds, etc.

The use of plants in medicine

A separate topic is the use of parts of plants for medical purposes. People have known about the health benefits of certain species for many years. For example, in Chinese medicine, a huge number of plants are used to treat a variety of diagnoses. Interestingly, some of them are considered poisonous and can be consumed in very limited quantities: only in this case they are curative.

Lot medicinal plants grows in middle lane Russia. These include, for example, the famous plantain, which stops bleeding, helps with minor wounds and injuries. Also used for recreational purposes are plants such as raspberry, lime blossom, pharmacy chamomile, wild rose and many others. However, they should be taken with caution on their own, as they often cause allergic reactions.

There are five main areas where plants are used directly or indirectly:

As human food and animal feed,

As a source of raw materials for industry and economic activity,

As medicines and raw materials for the production of medicines,

In decorative gardening and

In the protection and improvement of the environment.

The nutritional value of plants is well known. As human food and animal feed, as a rule, parts containing spare parts are used. nutrients or the substances themselves, extracted in one way or another. The need for carbohydrates is mainly satisfied by starch- and sugar-containing plants. The role of sources of vegetable protein in the diet of humans and animals is performed mainly by some plants from the legume family. The fruits and seeds of many species are used to produce vegetable oils. Most vitamins and minerals also come with fresh plant foods. A significant role in human nutrition is played by spices and plants containing caffeine - tea and coffee.

The technical use of plants and their products is carried out in several main areas. The most widely used wood and fibrous parts of plants. Wood is used in the manufacture of building and other structures, furniture, as well as in the production of paper. Dry distillation of wood makes it possible to obtain a significant amount of important organic substances widely used in industry and in everyday life. In many countries, wood is one of the main types of fuel.

Despite the widespread use of synthetic fibers, plant fibers derived from cotton (morphologically, these are trichomes), flax, hemp and jute have retained great importance in the production of many fabrics.

Plants have been used for medicinal purposes for a very long time. AT traditional medicine they form the bulk medicines. AT scientific medicine countries of the former USSR, about a third of the drugs used for treatment are obtained from plants. It is believed that with medicinal purposes the peoples of the world use at least 21,000 plant species (including mushrooms).

At least 1,000 plant species are cultivated for ornamental purposes, either for their beautiful flowers or for their showy greenery.

The existence and normal functioning of all ecological systems of the biosphere, of which man is also a part, is entirely determined by plants.

Plants already used by man or which may be used by him in the future constitute plant resources. Plant resources are categorized as renewable (when properly exploited) as opposed to, for example, non-renewable mineral resources. Most often, plant resources are divided into natural flora resources (this includes all wild species) and resources of cultivated plants. In terms of volume and significance in the life of mankind, they differ significantly.

The natural resources of flora are limited and, according to experts, in their initial volume they could provide food for only about 10 million people. Optimization (optimization is an increase in the productivity of natural populations with the help of biotechnical measures (fertilization, clearing, clarification, etc.). This part of plant resources is possible within a relatively limited range. The most widely wild plants are used as sources of technical raw materials, in economic human activities, as well as medicines.

The introduction of plants into culture and the formation of additional plant resources in this way is associated with the formation of ancient human civilizations. The existence of these civilizations could only be ensured by a certain "range" of cultivated plants that provide the necessary amount of vegetable proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The life of modern man and modern civilization are impossible without the widest use of cultivated plants. Almost all cultivated plants, the number of which now reaches about 1500 species, are angiosperms. By the middle of the XX century. cultivated plants occupied 1.5 billion hectares, i.e., about 10% of the entire land surface of the globe.

Increasing the resources of cultivated plants is possible within a very wide range, both by increasing the area of ​​their cultivation, and by improving agricultural technology and breeding highly productive varieties. It is believed that the full mobilization of renewable resources, including plant resources, can ensure the existence of at least 6 billion people on Earth.

Life, which originated on our planet about 4 billion years ago and is a unique natural phenomenon, has gone through a long path of development, which resulted in the emergence of amazingly complex living systems - organisms. During this period, the appearance of the Earth changed repeatedly, the composition of the atmosphere changed, oceans and entire continents arose and disappeared. Numerous and once prosperous groups of plants and animals came to replace each other, giving way to more and more complex and perfect living organisms in the face of increasing competition and an ever-changing climate. The natural stage of this grandiose process was the appearance of thinking beings, whose mind allowed them not only to realize the phenomenon of life in all its manifestations, but also to recreate in general terms the history of its development and classify the forms of life in all their amazing diversity. One can only guess in what ways life will develop and improve in the future, but it is already clear that human activity to a very large extent negatively affects its development. One of major tasks biology, and in particular botany, is to show not only the material, but also the spiritual dependence of mankind on the biosphere, which, figuratively speaking, is the cradle of our civilization. The complexity and endless diversity of the living world around us, the unsurpassed beauty of the universe form the vital spiritual side of our consciousness.