BOTANIC CULTURE AND ART

The appearance of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, between the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene, profoundly changed the course of our history.

The melting of ice and the mild climate significantly changed the topography in the Mediterranean region, leading to the extension of forests over large areas.

The consequent domestication of plants and animals radically changed the lifestyle of human groups, who, in a thousand years, became farmers, i.e. food producers.

In May 2022, a study based on genetic and demographic data was published in the journal 'Cell' showing that the first humans to switch from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to that of farming were part of a mixed population of hunter gatherers, who came from Europe and the Middle East.

The botanical cards that we present in this section are centered both on the phylogenetic aspects of genera and species, and on the therapeutic pharmacological use of medicinal species, and, lastly, on their presence in landscape painting.

Edited by Prof. Salvatore Piscitelli.