ABSTRACT
Gathering food from the wild represents one of the most complex aspects of the use of wild plants, and was closely intertwined with the history of the first human communities. Although past hunter-gatherers are often thought of primarily as dependent on the hunting of wild animals, archaeological and ethnographic evidence shows that plant foods always formed the bulk of their diet. The only exception is in areas such as the Arctic, where it is too cold for most wild food plants to grow. Even in agricultural communities today, the gathering of wild plants frequently remains important for nutrition and food diversity.
