Research Catalog

Title

The origins of human diet and medicine : chemical ecology / Timothy Johns.

Author

Johns, Timothy, 1950-

Publication

Tucson : University of Arizona Press, [1996]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xviii, 356 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

"The domestication of the potato serves as the focus of this synthesis of ethnobotany and chemical ecology. Johns considers the evolution of the human use of plants, the ways in which humans obtain foods from among the myriad poisonous and unpalatable plants in the environment, and the consequences of this history for understanding the basis of the human diet."--Back cover.

Series Statement

Arizona studies in human ecology

Uniform Title

• With bitter herbs they shall eat it
• Arizona studies in human ecology

Alternative Title

With bitter herbs they shall eat it

Subjects

• Ethnobotany
• Plants, Toxic
• Diet > history
• Anthropology, Cultural
• Adaptation, Biological
• Ethnobotany > history
• Chemical ecology
• Traditional medicine
• Plant toxins
• Prehistoric peoples > Food

Note

• Originally published: With bitter herbs they shall eat it. c1990.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-338) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

A model of human chemical ecology -- Biological adaptations for dealing with plant toxins -- Technological methods of detoxification -- Domestication as a solution for dealing with plant toxins -- Human perception, cognition, and behavior in relation to plant chemicals -- Reconsidering the model of human chemical ecology -- Plant chemical defenses as determinants of the human diet -- The dietary basis for the origin of human medicine -- Classification of traditional plant processing techniques -- Traditional methods of plant detoxification.

ISBN

• 0816516871 (paper)
• 0816510237 (cloth)

LCCN

^^^96020505^

OCLC

• 34746017
• SCSB-10447725

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library