User:Quercusfanatic/Mast (botany)
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Article Draft
[edit]I am going to be adding this paragraph to the wiki page: Mast (botany) - Wikipedia
CULTURE:
Tree mast was not only important as a food staple for wildlife, but also for peoples around the world, both in prehistoric and contemporary times. Balanocultures, which are cultures that had mast as a staple food source, have lead to some of the most successful cultures in history. It has even been postulated that the transition from hunting and gathering to balanoculture may have been responsible for the the transition of nomadic hunter-gatherer society, to a sedentary hunter-gatherer society. The importance of tree mast to human cultures has been recorded back into antiquity, and is also evident in the archeological record. This evidence comes from the Americas, China, Korea, and Europe, but we can assume that anywhere mast species exist, cultures may have consumed them. In Europe, in the first century AD, Strabo mentions that Iberians would process tree mast, specifically acorns into flour, to make bread. However, there was a view of eating mast that Herodotus describes as being part of a "primitive" diet. He notes that when the Spartans consulted the Oracle of Delphi regarding if they should attempt to challenge the Arcadians, she referred to them as "acorn eaters". This falls in line with a European view of viewing acorns as a "primitive food" Acorns were also also important to European and Asian cultures by feeding mast to pigs. Pork was an important food source to peoples across the Northern Hemisphere, and mast was the most important food source for these livestock. Although not as important as in the past, mast still holds some significance today as an emergency food source in industrial society.
REFERENCES:
2. Logan, William Bryant. Oak: the frame of civilization. WW Norton & Company, 2005.
3. Bainbridge, David A. "The rise of agriculture: a new perspective." Ambio (1985): 148-151.
4.Maraschi, Andrea. "The Seed of Hope: Acorns from Famine Food to Delicacy in European History." In Seeds: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2018, vol. 1918. Oxford Food Symposium, 2019.
6.Parsons, James J. "The acorn-hog economy of the oak woodlands of southwestern Spain." Geographical Review 52, no. 2 (1962): 211-235.
NOTE: What I did was add in a paragraph, The page did not mention the significance of mast to humans, and I thought that was an important detail to include. I also added a references sections for my paragraph.