Earliest biological records

Biological practices among Assyrians and Babylonians

date palm; biology

date palm; biology

Much of the earliest recorded history of biology is derived from Assyrian and Babylonian bas-reliefs
showing cultivated plants and from carvings depicting veterinary medicine. Illustrations on certain seals
reveal that the Babylonians had learned that the date palm reproduces sexually and that pollen could be
taken from the male plant and used to fertilize female plants. Although a precise dating of those early
records is lacking, a Babylonian business contract of the Hammurabi period (c. 1800 BCE) mentions the
male flower of the date palm as an article of commerce, and descriptions of date harvesting extend back
to about 3500 BCE.

greylag. Flock of Greylag geese during their winter migration at Bosque del Apache National Refugee,
New Mexico. greylag goose (Anser anser)

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Biology Bonanza

Another source of information concerning the extent of biological knowledge of these early peoples was
the discovery of several papyri that pertain to medical subjects; one, believed to date to 1600 BCE,
contains anatomical descriptions; another (c. 1500 BCE) indicates that the importance of the heart had
been recognized. Because those ancient documents, which contained mixtures of fact and superstition,
probably summarized then-current knowledge, it may be assumed that some of their contents had been
known by earlier generations.

Biological knowledge of Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians

Ebers papyrus

Ebers papyrus

Papyri and artifacts found in tombs and pyramids indicate that the Egyptians also possessed
considerable medical knowledge. Their well-preserved mummies demonstrate that they had a thorough
understanding of the preservative properties of herbs required for embalming; plant necklaces and bas-
reliefs from various sources also reveal that the ancient Egyptians were well aware of the medicinal
value of certain plants. An Egyptian compilation known as the Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) is one of the
oldest known medical texts.
In ancient China, three mythical emperors—Fu Xi, Shennong, and Huangdi—whose supposed ruling
periods extended from the 29th to the 27th century BCE, were said to possess medical knowledge.
According to legend, Shennong described the therapeutic powers of numerous medicinal plants and
included descriptions of many important food plants, such as the soybean. The earliest known written
record of medicine in China, however, is the Huangdi neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal
Medicine), which dates to the 3rd century BCE. In addition to medicine, the ancient Chinese possessed
knowledge of other areas of biology. For example, they not only used the silkworm Bombyx mori to
produce silk for commerce but also understood the principle of biological control, employing one type of
insect, an entomophagous (insect-eating) ant, to destroy insects that bored into trees.

As early as 2500 BCE the people of northwestern India had a well-developed science of agriculture. The
ruins at Mohenjo-daro have yielded seeds of wheat and barley that were cultivated at that time. Millet,
dates, melons, and other fruits and vegetables, as well as cotton, were known to the civilization. Plants
were not only a source of food, however. A document, believed to date to the 6th century BCE,
described the use of about 960 medicinal plants and included information on topics such as anatomy,
physiology, pathology, and obstetrics.

The Greco-Roman world

Although the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians amassed much biological
information, they lived in a world believed to be dominated by unpredictable demons and spirits. Hence,
learned individuals in those early cultures directed their studies toward an understanding of the
supernatural, rather than the natural, world. Anatomists, for example, dissected animals not to gain an
understanding of their structure but to study their organs in order to predict the future. With the
emergence of the Greek civilization, however, those mystical attitudes began to change. Around 600 BCE
there arose a school of Greek philosophers who believed that every event has a cause and that a
particular cause produces a particular effect. That concept, known as causality, had a profound effect on
subsequent scientific investigation. Furthermore, those philosophers assumed the existence of a
“natural law” that governs the universe and can be comprehended by humans through the use of their
powers of observation and deduction. Although they established the science of biology, the greatest
contribution the Greeks made to science was the idea of rational thought.

Theories about humankind and the origin of life

One of the earliest Greek philosophers, Thales of Miletus (c. 7th century BCE), maintained that the
universe contained a creative force that he called physis, an early progenitor of the term physics; he also
postulated that the world and all living things in it were made from water. Anaximander, a student of
Thales, did not accept water as the only substance from which living things were derived; he believed
that in addition to water, living things consisted of earth and a gaslike substance called apeiron, which
could be divided into hot and cold. Various mixtures of those materials gave rise to the four elements:
earth, air, fire, and water. Although he was one of the first to describe Earth as a sphere rather than as a
flat plane, Anaximander proposed that life arose spontaneously in mud and that the first animals to
emerge had been fishes covered with a spiny skin. The descendants of those fishes eventually left water
and moved to dry land, where they gave rise to other animals by transmutation (the conversion of one
form into another). Thus, an early evolutionary theory was formulated.

At Crotone in southern Italy, where an important school of natural philosophy was established by
Pythagoras about 500 BCE, one of his students, Alcmaeon, investigated animal structure and described
the difference between arteries and veins, discovered the optic nerve, and recognized the brain as the
seat of the intellect. As a result of his studies of the development of the embryo, Alcmaeon may be
considered the founder of embryolog