Seeing Weeds with New Eyes’ Part II– Some Historical Perspectives and ‘Proto Weeds

Nimal R. Chandrasena

Keywords:

ohalo-ii ralp waldo emerson proto-weeds gerald mccarthy william darlington jethro tull

Abstract:

Continuing the theme ‘Seeing Weeds with New eyes’ (Chandrasena, 2019), in this issue of Weeds, I expand on some historical perspectives on matters related to colonizing taxa that have not received much attention within our discipline. My hope is that the emerging generation of weed scientists may benefit from deeper insights about the discipline’s history and how our attitudes towards weeds have changed and evolved with time. In the essay, I focus on the 18th century British inventor Jethro Tull (1674-1740); a medical doctor and amateur botanist from Penn State, USA - William Darlington (1782-1863); and a botanist from North Carolina, USA - Gerald McCarthy, whose contributions possibly shaped our discipline. I also provide a brief account of some recent archaeo-botanical findings from the Levant, that push the record of first-known weeds back 23,000 years, to a time well before settled agriculture. The findings from a site (Ohalo II) at the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret, Israel) affirm that colonizing species were present well before some ancient humans settled in one place to do farming.