Nez Perce Indians more than hunter gathers?

[kbs2244]

From today’s news page
https://popular-archaeology.com/article ... n-contact/

Nez Perce Indians, not just opportune hunter gathers
Using the word “cultivating” is important.

“I think it’s a very reasonable proposition that people were cultivating tobacco,” Tushingham said. “This is just another sign of the sophistication of cultures in this area and how they managed plants and animals.”

Doesn’t this pre-date the growing of Maze as the first cultivated plant?
Should the same examination be done on mid-continent pipes?

[circumspice]

The article states that the artifacts that yielded traces of nicotine go back as far as 1200 years. That's 800-900A.D. They also state that there are two indigenous varieties of wild tobacco growing in the region. The cultivation of maize goes back many thousands of years earlier than that, spreading from Mexico northward. Of course maize wasn't grown in the Pacific Northwest during that time period. Anyway, tobacco was cultivated in an area from Oregon southwards to California. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that tobacco could have been traded all along the Pacific coast. If there's a commodity to be traded, it will find its way to consumers willing to buy it.

[kbs2244]

More than the dates, I was interested in the concept of "cultivating tobacco”
That implies more than just finding and gathering wild plants.

And perhaps brings up the idea that they grew it for trade.

It is not just a warm area plant.
It is grown in Canada, just east of Detroit.

[circumspice]

Here's an excerpt from one article that I found. There are others but I can't copy or download because I'm not a member or not a paid member... One website claims that tobacco has been cultivated in Peru & Ecuador for at least 10,000 years. The article below claims 8,000 years... By the way, the word Sik'ar sounds an awful lot like the word cigar...

TOBACCO TIMELINE
Copyright 1993-2001 Gene Borio

SOURCES: Thanks to tobacco researcher Larry Breed (LB) for his contributions. He recently found a little tome called "This Smoking World" (1927), and shared some of its events (TSW). I am also beginning to incorporate events referenced in Richard Kluger's monumental Ashes to Ashes (RK), The American Tobacco Story (ATS), Corti's "A History of Smoking (1931), Elizabeth Whelan's A Smoking Gun, and Susan Wagner's Cigarette Country (1971). Another important source is Bill Drake's wonderful The European Experience With Native American Tobacco (BD). Many will be interested in the 1989 Surgeon General report segment, "ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE OF THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF SMOKING" (PDF, 93 pp).


Prelude


Prehistory: Although small amounts of nicotine may be found in some Old World plants, including belladonna and Nicotiana africana, and nicotine metabolites have been found in human remains and pipes in the Near East and Africa, there is no indication of habitual tobacco use in the Ancient world, on any continent save the Americas.
The sacred origin of tobacco and the first pipe (Schoolcraft)
c. 6000 BCE: Experts believe the tobacco plant, as we know it today, begins growing in the Americas.
c.1 BCE: Experts believe American inhabitants have begun finding ways to use tobacco, including smoking (in a number of variations), chewing and in probably hallucinogenic enemas (by the Peruvian Aguaruna aboriginals).
c. 1 CE: Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the Americas. (American Heritage Book of Indians, p.41).
600-1000 CE: UAXACTUN, GUATEMALA. First pictorial record of smoking: A pottery vessel found here dates from before the 11th century. On it a Maya is depicted smoking a roll of tobacco leaves tied with a string. The Mayan term for smoking was sik'ar

Introduction:

The Chiapas Gift, or The Indians' Revenge?

1492-10-12: Columbus Discovers Tobacco; "Certain Dried Leaves" Are Received as Gifts, and Thrown Away.
On this bright morning Columbus and his men set foot on the New World for the first time, landing on the beach of San Salvador Island or Samana Cay in the Bahamas, or Gran Turk Island. The indigenous Arawaks, possibly thinking the strange visitors divine, offer gifts. Columbus wrote in his journal,
the natives brought fruit, wooden spears, and certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance.
As each item seemed much-prized by the natives; Columbus accepted the gifts and ordered them brought back to the ship. The fruit was eaten; the pungent "dried leaves" were thrown away.

1492-10-15: Columbus Mentions Tobacco. "We found a man in a canoe going from Santa Maria to Fernandia. He had with him some dried leaves which are in high value among them, for a quantity of it was brought to me at San Salvador" -- Christopher Columbus' Journal
1492-11: Jerez and Torres Discover Smoking; Jerez Becomes First European Smoker
Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, in Cuba searching for the Khan of Cathay (China), are credited with first observing smoking. They reported that the natives wrapped dried tobacco leaves in palm or maize "in the manner of a musket formed of paper." After lighting one end, they commenced "drinking" the smoke through the other. Jerez became a confirmed smoker, and is thought to be the first outside of the Americas. He brought the habit back to his hometown, but the smoke billowing from his mouth and nose so frightened his neighbors he was imprisoned by the holy inquisitors for 7 years. By the time he was released, smoking was a Spanish craze.

1497: Robert Pane, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, writes the first report of native tobacco use to appear in Europe.
1498- Columbus visits Trinidad and Tobago, naming the latter after the native tobacco pipe.

The link: http://archive.tobacco.org/History/Tobacco_History.html


You know kbs2244... This took all of maybe 30 seconds to look up...

[Minimalist]

Doesn’t this pre-date the growing of Maze as the first cultivated plant?

https://www.thoughtco.com/maize-domesti ... orn-171832

Maize (Zea mays) is a plant of enormous modern-day economic importance as foodstuff and alternative energy source. Scholars agree that maize was domesticated from the plant teosinte (Zea mays spp. parviglumis) in central America at least as early 9,000 years ago.

But if you want to go world wide then the answer seems to be barley, in Mesopotamia, c 8,500 BC

[kbs2244]

None of this answers the question of if the Nez Perce were farmers, of any crop, or not.

[Minimalist]

Their "history" begins with Lewis and Clark in 1805. I would imagine their tribal legends are about as reliable as any other oral history.

[Simon21]

None of this answers the question of if the Nez Perce were farmers, of any crop, or not.

Slightly depends on what you mean. Tending some wild tobacco pants may be a form of cultivation but it doesn't make people farmers.
There is supposed to be evidence that the Koories of far West NSW and QLD scattered nardoo seed (don't try eating it, apparently it turns your stools to concrete) but no one calls them cultivators

[kbs2244]

My personal definitions

Gathers = Finders of wild growing plants. Possibly enhancing the locally found, but still wild, growing area.
This would include annually returning to a known area while migrating.

Gardening = Growing enough for your family. Living near enough so you can regularly tend to a plot, wild or planted by weeding, watering, etc.

Farming = Gardening increased to growing enough to sell.

This would make the Koories gathers, by my definitions.
If they purposely stayed nearby so the could enhance the plant growth the would become gardeners.