ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a background for this book by addressing three questions: (1) why is it important to study the history of traditional knowledge? (2) why Georgia? and (3) what is traditional knowledge?
Traditional ecological knowledge has always been a large component of our culture, especially during prehistoric times. A historical approach and a reconstruction of how traditional knowledge has emerged and evolved becomes crucial for the understanding of the structure and importance of existing traditional knowledge in a given culture.
Georgia is a country where traditional societies have existed over a long period of time, under a very wide range of environmental conditions, and with a high density of species over a small area. By ethnic fractionalisation and cultural diversity, Georgia ranks ninth among 31 nations of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The earliest fossil remains of hominins found in Georgia are dated to ca. 1.8 million BP.
In a broad sense, traditional knowledge may encompass local cultural traditions including the ways ecosystem services and natural resources are used. There is a large aspect of interrelationships between humans and nature without which it is impossible to appreciate fully the importance of healthy ecosystems and the degree humans alter these ecosystems, and as such motivates a study on the past of traditional ecological knowledge.
