Taxon

Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies.

Much later, Aristotle, and later still, European scientists, like Magnol,[2] Tournefort[3] and Carl Linnaeus's system in Systema Naturae, 10th edition (1758),[4], as well as an unpublished work by Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, contributed to this field.

Since then, systematists continue to construct accurate classifications encompassing the diversity of life; today, a "good" or "useful" taxon is commonly taken to be one that reflects evolutionary relationships.

[note 1] Many modern systematists, such as advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature, use cladistic methods that require taxa to be monophyletic (all descendants of some ancestor).

This has given rise to phylogenetic taxonomy and the ongoing development of the PhyloCode, which has been proposed as a new alternative to replace Linnean classification and govern the application of names to clades.