ABSTRACT
Historical archaeologists can access a variety of ethnobotanical information using historical records, oral histories, archaeological plant remains, and clues remaining in existing landscapes. We can infer foodways, health/healing, agricultural practices, landscape use, and environmental interactions. These all tie in to current themes of inquiry for historical archaeology, including identity, colonialism, plantation economies, landscape management, and urbanization, among others. Botanical subjects can also connect historical archaeologists to current trends in food politics and food history, such as globalization, food security and sovereignty, “ingredients” biographies, and observations and responses to climate change. This field potentially links the past to the present through climate change, resource management, food security and sovereignty, Indigenous knowledge, and community projects, among others. Human–plant interrelationships are rapidly changing through societal and ecological shifts, and environmental historical archaeology holds key lessons from the past. In this chapter, we review major trends in botanical studies within historical archaeology published since 2000.
