People
Nesbitt, Mark
| Job Title | Ethnobotanist |
|---|---|
| Department | Jodrell |
| Section | Sustainable Uses |
| Science Teams |
Monocots II: Commelinids Large-Scale Syntheses |
| Joined Kew | 1999 |
| Foreign Language(s) |
Qualifications & Appointments
BSc, Agricultural Botany, Univ. Reading, 1983
MSc, Bioarchaeology, Univ. London, 1984
PhD, Univ. College London, 1997.
Editorial Board, Turkish Journal of Botany
Editorial Board, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Committee, Society for Economic Botany.
Role
Digitization and research into the Economic Botany Collection; ethnobotany education; taxonomy of useful plants; seed-morphology; public enquiries.
Responsibilities vary according to the progress of different projects, but include core commitments to organization and part-teaching of the joint Kent-Kew MSc in Ethnobotany, and responding to public and external research enquiries regarding useful and poisonous plants. Advice is also given to other staff at Kew on economic botany, particularly aspects of history, taxonomy, seeds and cereals. Current projects are focused on the Economic Botany Collection (EBC): the Plant Cultures website (2003-2005), a DCMS-funded project, which combined research and part-digitization of the EBC and involved working with British Asian communities, has recently been completed. Current work is on planning digitization of the EBC (and other means of increasing access), with an emphasis on its medical collections.
Projects
Diversity of Biologically Active Plants and Plant-Derived Compounds
Selected Publications 2001-2005
Nesbitt, M. (2005). Identification guide for Near Eastern grass seeds. London: Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Prance, G. & Nesbitt, M. (eds) (2005). The cultural history of plants. New York: Routledge.
Edwards, H. G. M., de Oliveira, L. F. C. & Nesbitt, M. (2003). Fourier-transform Raman characterization of brazilwood trees and substitutes. The Analyst 128:82-87.
Nesbitt, M., Colledge, S. & Murray, M. A. (2003). Organisation and management of seed reference collections. Environmental Archaeology 8:77-84.
Nesbitt, M. (2001). Wheat evolution: integrating archaeological and biological Evidence. In Caligari, P. D. S. & Brandham, P. E. (eds). Wheat taxonomy: the legacy of John Percival, vol. 3, Linnean, Special Issue. London: Linnean Society. 37-59.
Selected Publications pre-2001
Nesbitt, M. (1998). Where was einkorn wheat domesticated? Trends in Plant Science 3: 82-83.
Nesbitt, M. & Samuel, D. (1996). From staple crop to extinction? The archaeology and history of the hulled wheats. In Padulosi, S. Hammer, K.& Heller, J.
(eds). Hulled wheats. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hulled Wheats. Vol. 4. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. 41-100.
Nesbitt, M. (1995). Plants and people in ancient Anatolia. Biblical Archaeologist 58: 68-81.
Nesbitt, M. (1993). Archaeobotanical evidence for early Dilmun diet at Saar, Bahrain. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 4: 20-47.
Nesbitt, M. & Greig, J. (1989). A bibliography for the archaeobotanical identification of seeds from Europe and the Near East. Circaea 7: 11-30.