Overview
- Provides documentation for Baobab's global cultural significance
- Elucidates the popular interest in Baobab identified as the "tree of life"
- Fully describes Baobab for its food potential suitable for dry environments
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About this book
Modern humans, descendants of a founding population that separated from chimpanzees some five to eight million years ago, are today the only living representative of a branching group of African apes called hominins. Because of its extraordinary size and shape, the baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) has long been identified as the most striking tree of Africa’s mosaic savanna, the landscape generally regarded as the environment of hominin evolution. This book makes the case for identifying the baobab as the tree of life in the hunter-gatherer adaptation that was the economic foundation of hominin evolution. The argument is based on the significance of the baobab as a resource-rich environment for the Hadza of northeastern Tanzania, who continue to be successful hunter-gatherers of the African savanna.
Keywords
Table of contents (25 chapters)
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Theoretical Framework: Societal Specialization and Bipedality
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Material Culture and Technology
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Environmental Considerations
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Hadza Baobab Resources: Food, Health, and Exchange Benefits
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Baobab
Book Subtitle: The Hadza of Tanzania and the Baobab as Humanity's Tree of Life
Authors: John Rashford
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26470-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-26469-6Published: 29 June 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-26472-6Due: 30 July 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-26470-2Published: 28 June 2023
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXIX, 382
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 5 illustrations in colour
Topics: Plant Anatomy/Development, Plant Ecology, Plant Physiology, Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Anthropology