Ethnobotanical research at Klasies River linking past, present, and future

Klasies River, a significant archaeological site in South Africa's southern Cape coast, reveals a continuous human occupation from the Middle to Late Pleistocene and into the Holocene. Ethnobotanical research here shows that 84% of plants used today by local participants align with historical Khoi and San indigenous knowledge, while 42% also appear in archaeological records, indicating enduring plant-human interactions across millennia. This study underscores the importance of systematic ethnobotanical data collection, particularly from Khoi and San descendants, to better understand adaptive human-plant relationships shaped by intergenerational learning. The research employed semi-structured interviews and field walks with six local experts, using an interdisciplinary, abductive grounded theory approach.

van Wijk, Y., Rust, R., Uithaler, E. M., & Wurz, S. (2019). Ethnobotanical research at Klasies River linking past, present, and future. Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 18. https://doi.org/10.32859/era.18.34.1-24