Paper short abstract:

This paper shows how images are capable of shedding light on ancient ethnobotanical practices. By reading visual evidence as historical documents, we can track continuities and disruptions in the uses of plants and rediscover forgotten ethnobotanical practices.

Paper long abstract:

This research analyses watercolour, engravings and photographs produced in Colombian from 1820 until the 1940s and “read” them as documents capable of shedding light on ancient ethnobotanical practices. Drawing on digitalised resources, this research reinterrogates the graphical outcomes of the “Expedición Corográfica”. This expedition was an early recognition of the natural resources within the Colombian borders, and it produced a detailed set of watercolours depicting people, customs and landscapes. Additionally, this research explores watercolours and engravings produced by nineteenth-century travellers, many of whose were plant hunters, scientists, or politicians who created images devoted to illustrating their travel diaries, usually published in Europe. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of photography rapidly spread across Colombia. This new technique changed the visual narrative of the country. This research also analyses the photographic evidence from an ethnobotanical perspective, emphasising this technique's new graphic possibilities. The use of images reveals how until recently, Colombian material culture intensely relied on particular ethnobotanical knowledge not always present in written documents. The use of images, then, can help track continuities and disruptions in the uses of plants, and equally important, can be used to study the disappearance of botanical knowledge, eventually contributing to the reintroduction of forgotten ethnobotanical practices.