Abstract

At present, all countries of the world compete for resource hegemony of securing biological tradition knowledge. I studied for development of old literature category about Korean traditional biological knowledge in this paper. This is the purpose for securing our sovereignty over biological resources and for improving the base of traditional biological knowledge. This needs interdisciplinary research between the humanities and natural sciences, in other words, between history and biology. To begin with, I traced a word to its origin and usage of modern biology in old Korean literatures. As a result, old Koreans used usually a herb & tree and birds & animals instead of plant and animal organism. I also researched widely over old 100 literatures related biological knowledge in the Choseon dynasty. There are three categories related biological literature: first, traditional premodern encyclopedia books part, second, old agriculture books part and third books of medical herbs part. I developed about 16 old literatures as more directly related biological knowledge. I also analyzed a tradition classification method and the taxonomy system about plant and animal organism through several old books containing biological knowledges, for example, old encyclopedic Yuwon‒chongbo, medical herb Tongwi‒bogam and agricultural book of Nongjung‒junseo. From now on, it is positively necessary to improve our research of traditional biology classification, including development for new other biological literature materials.