Out of the audience and into the spotlight: This month’s speaker, Carl Johannessen, is a loyal attendee of ENHS’ monthly talks, and this month we’ve enticed him out of his seat onto our podium for a fascinating presentation of his own research into the spread of species, particularly plants, from the West to the East. Aside from his pursuit of scientific evidence in its myriad of forms, Carl always offers humor and conviviality to those who seek him out. He leads an interesting life and continues to enjoy and pursue his lifetime hobbies as well as his serious scientific investigations. Here’s what he has to say about his growing up years.
“I was always fascinated with the natural world as a kid, though I had no formal training in school in biology. I mostly studied the other sciences and took all the various shop classes. My three years in the U.S. Navy in World War II introduced me to the tropical island landscape and that became a part of me too. I enjoyed the tropical oceans and the underwater life of Saipan and other islands greatly. One could maintain a bit of sanity snorkeling for hours at a time in the lagoons. One learned what really large papayas were in their own ripening climate.
“My parents were teachers. Although they had no formal biological training, they encouraged exploration in almost all aspects of the natural world. My father became a contractor and carpenter and I followed suit some of the time. I did a fair amount of running for exercise in the hills and forests of the park near my home in Fullerton, California. We did a little gardening and I worked as an agricultural laborer in orchards. We enjoyed the mountains and the coasts during recreation time. I also worked on a cattle ranch one summer in Nevada where my Dad was working. I worked on construction part of the time, but most of the time I was on a survey crew walking in this arid landscape. Little did I know that this was a precursor for later study.”
Carl’s study began in earnest at Berkeley: “Professor A. Starker Leopold was of special importance in my B.A. and M.A. training. I worked one summer as a wildlife researcher on Leopold's “Jawbone Deer Herd Study” with Dr. Thane Riney as the field supervisor. They were wonderful mentors. Then Professor Sammy Sampson in Range Management classes got me rolling in the grasses. Professor Herbert Baker and Professor Herbert Mason further stimulated my curiosity in the plant geography field. Professor Carl O. Sauer became my mentor for the PhD. at UC Berkeley. Subsequent field researches in Middle America on the savannas continued my earlier start in botany. And all along I was captivated by the influences of human actions on the vegetation, whether or not the people understood the outcome of their actions.”
Geographers at Berkeley, Professors Jim Parsons and Carl Sauer, influenced Carl Johannessen as much in the direction of his studies as in the scientific approach to good field study. “Their idea is that you need to attempt to observe all aspects of habitat, wherever you are. They provoked us to look especially at those features that were modified by human action. And they specifically stimulated my interest in the Paleolithic and Neolithic activities of organic farmers. Parsons and Sauer urged us to get out of the cities and into the forest, plains or farmlands to look at human activities. They sent us into the field in Central America on Office of Naval Research grants, and we observed and we studied: People changed habitats; we recorded those modifications.”
When I asked Carl about his hobbies, he gave a little more insight into his drive for knowledge: “As a result of investigations on reproducing tropical palms in Costa Rica I tried to tissue culture the palms. When I returned home, Professor Don Wimber and I formed Neopropagations Inc. to reproduce tetraploid Cymbidium orchids to pay for further researches on plant improvement. Ultimately that led to the creation of an orchard of fruit trees, etc. in Eugene, which I sold to support travel in Asia. Recently I tried to tetraploid the foxtail millet. Perhaps going fishing would have been more fun and remunerative.”
Now to get into the nitty gritty of what makes Carl tick today, we need to look at his observations of past human modifications: “Farmers changed the plants they cultivated and I found that this lead to the domestication process of both plants and animals. With simple farmers using ancient technologies they changed the wild plant distributions. It is still possible to study the ancient ways farmers changed the genetics of the plants they cultivated. One can gain insight into the ancient ways our ancestors probably modified their corn, beans, squash, chilies, tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, etc. for thousands of years by observing primitive agrarian practices today. However, it is getting harder to find really simple organic farmers. Today’s students need to look for such peoples who still have the ancient systems to control the weeds and pests, hence the genetics of their crops, before all traces of the old ways are lost. When one understands some of what has gone into changing the plants and the amount of time required for this change, she/he can then appreciate the significance of finding a domesticated plant on the wall sculpture in ancient temples in India and China.
“This understanding is what is pulling me now. My many mentors would be pleased that we have a book coming out on the subject of the diffusion of plants and animals by tropical sailors, across the oceans before Columbus in 1492.” *
The forthcoming publication of his years of study, however, does not end Carl’s pursuit of clues to the past and concerns for the future: “Almost every summer over the first thirty years of life in Eugene I traveled to Central or South America to study plants and animals that were being modified by farmers. Upon retirement, I traveled to India, China, Turkey, Indonesia, Spain and England to find evidence of the dispersal of the plants and animals that had been changed by farmers in the domestication process in early history. Over the last twenty years these discoveries have reinforced my determination to do what is possible to cause a subliminal change in people's attitudes and reduce their feelings of racism in the U.S., Canada and Europe, to the extent that one person can.”
We’re fortunate that Carl chose to accept a position a few decades ago in the Department of Geography at the U. of O. beginning his teaching/research career in Eugene. “The chance to be here in this beautiful country--with lots of prairies, coasts and forests--pulled me in tightly and has kept me. Fishing anyone?
What will we hear about Friday night?
“You will hear about the literature and the discoveries that John Sorenson* and I have made in the field that demonstrate that well-tanned tropical sailors moved across the oceans very early in human history. You will learn that the majority of the plants moved from the Americas to Asia. This is in part true because the Sanskrit language gives us evidence for documenting support for their early presence. Sanskrit is something like Latin, in that a thousand years ago it stopped being an active language and stopped adding nouns--names--to the lexicon. I am going to point out those species for which we have specific published, archaeological remains.** In addition I will be talking about of the artwork, ceramics, sculpture, linguistics, printed literature, chemical analysis, etc. that indicate that the respective plants are well documented in the scientific literature and have been largely ignored by the sciences. I am not going to talk about the diseases and larger animals that we have found, but there are a couple dozen of those for you to go through when the book is available or you allow me to return for another talk on the little critters.”
Carl Johannessen’s passion for his work has earned him the respect and commendation of his colleagues and his students, including the 'Master Mentor' award of the National Council for Geographical Education 1992. He has inspired controversy but not antagonism in his field, always positive for furthering scientific investigation. He offers below some additional comments regarding the research detailed in his book and the future of investigations that he encourages budding scientists to continue:
“When our information [re: book] is without archaeological findings, two independent lines of evidences are required before we accept the high likelihood of early diffusion. We have listed the plants with single issues of evidence in another table so that those with interests along these lines will have a positive guide to start a more concerted search for more evidence to fill out the positive support for early contact. Since there are many more plants that probably, ultimately will be found to have been transported and, just not found as yet, we give you another list for opening up more time for students to be hunting for more species that offer a high chance of support.
“A problem I see with the modern trends in the universities, with their specialists, seldom does one find a scholar who is going outside her/his Department specialties. It is time for studying the interrelationships of one’s own field of interest with others of a similar discipline and compare Africa with America, Asia with America, etc. When was the last time you compared your interest across the ocean with another continent’s culture before 1500 CE [Common Era]? Whether it is medicine, art, weaving, metallurgy, mathematics, law, political theory, anthropology, blowguns or dyeing, you will most certainly find information that has been lacking in you home field. Discoveries will flow from the well where most thought there was no reason for bringing up the bucket from all that way down.”
Furthering his humanitarian as well as his scientific interests, Carl says his “current job has been to try to improve the foxtail millet, Setaria italica. It was one of the first grains domesticated in Asia (and perhaps in America) and has been stuck with tiny seeds. I have tried to select tetraploids of this plant and am trying to double the size of the seed. Once successful, I plan to give it to the Departments of Agriculture in several Asian countries that currently still use the grain in its smaller form, to try to improve the crop for the farmers--and for free. (Agribusiness companies will not carry the seeds because the plant self-pollinates its seed, and the commercial companies will not carry seeds that they cannot force the farmer to buy for the next planting cycle.)
This is not all Carl is doing, he says, “There are some other activities, a couple of them actually that are too fierce to mention at this time.”
With that, I know were in for a great Friday evening! --Editor