Research on Historical Ethnobotany Carried Out by the Laboratory of Ethnobotany From the Argentine Museum of Natural History

An overview of 20 research papers carried out by the laboratory of the Argentine Museum of Natural History during the last 10 years is presented here. These include 12 papers on ethnobotany of Jesuit and Franciscan Missions, and 8 (eight) on indigenous and Criollos folk groups of Argentina. Among the first ones, 6 works about Moqoit Indian ethnobotany from the Jesuitic reserve of San Javier (Santa Fe province), 2 on the Qom Indians from the Franciscan reserve of Laishí (Formosa province), and 4 about the “Materia Médica Misionera” of Pedro Montenegro (eighteenth century), are included. Among those with Criollos folk groups, 2 analyze data presented by the Argentinian Government at the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1889, and 2 of the Criollos from the Humid Chaco were included at the Folklore National Survey of 1921. Finally, 4 papers about Argentinian indigenous people from the unpublished ethnobotany data of Raúl Martínez Crovetto are presented: 2 with Moqoit (Chaco province) and 2 concerning Aonik’enk people (Santa Cruz province). All of these scientific papers include the most unpublished original ethnobotany data that not only completes our knowledge about the bio-cultural complex with a lack of information, but their results are of the highest importance in order to interpret historical sociocultural processes that help to understand the present ethnobotany in Argentina.