ANTH 205 Lecture 5

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Reading Material

A Brief History of Eating, Part I

Where to start?

1.9 Mya: Evidence of early humans (H. erectus) using fire to cook (but not totally under control until 500 Kya)

Nutritiets

chemicals that provide energy, structure, regulation of body processes that are not completely synthesized in the body.

we eat because we need stuff to build the other stuff out of.

Millions of things to eat, but we only eat a small fraction of that foodstuff.

• Individual Nutritional Status (specific to me )

Biocultural Model

Technology ------ social organization ------- ideology
     |                                           |
     |   .------------- Cuisine -------------.   |
     |   |.------------- Diet --------------.|   |
     |   ||.-------------------------------.||   |
     |   ||| Individual Nutritional Status |||   |
     |   ||'-------------------------------'||   |
     |   |'---------------------------------'|   |
     |   '-----------------------------------'   |
     |                                           |
  Physical  ------------------------------ Socioeconomic
 environment                                environment

How do we know what people ate a long time ago? (cross-disciplinary studies)

3 Phases:

1. Shift from diet comprised of unprocessed plant foods to one that incorporated deliberate (complex) food-processing techniques, including significant amounts of meat obtained via scavenging (late Miocene; 1.5 Mya)
2. Deliberate Hunting of animals. Meat is a great idea, but we don't want to fight sabertooth cats for it (700 Kya)
   • Anatomically modern humans appeared 200 Kya
3. Farming (Pleistocene/Holocene; 11 Kya); Neolithic/Agricultural revolution
   • Shift from hunter-gathering to farming and production

Farming

Founding crops:

• emmer wheat (farro)
• einkorn wheat
• barley
• lentils
• peas
• chickpeas
• bitter vetch
• flax

Domesticated and selectively bred

Emerged independently in 3 places and spread:

1. Middle East (wheat 10.5 Kya; goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs 9-8 Kya)
2. China (rice 9.5 Kya; horses, camels, 6-5 Kya; chickens 8 Kya; ducks 5 Kya)
3. Central and South America (maize 5.5 Kya)

Implications:

• Decrease in calories/hour obtained, but increased reliability
• shift from high-quality to low-quality foods
• modern hunter/gatherers spend 12–19 hours/wk gathering food; eat around 75 types of wild plants (!Kung Bushmen)

Consequences

• 14 Kya, avg height was 5'5" for women and 5'9" for men (and shrinking)
• malnutrition: rickets, scurvy, anemia
• infectious diseases: leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria
• skeletal: arthritis, tooth-decay

Why Farm?

• Transition from hunter/gatherer to farming was gradual
• Climate stabilization
• Increased sedentism and population expansion
• By 4 Kya, the majority of humanity was dependent on farming.

Agricultural Revolution

Allowed populations to grow larger, which broight in new developments:

• Gov't
• architecture
• divisions of labor
• religious prosperity
• trade systems
• war
• etc…
• wealth v. poverty due to differential access to resources

Modern implications:

• About 1% of population in rich countries (like US and UK) are farmers.
• More than 80% of people in Rwanda are involved in agriculture

Made civilization possible

• increasingly wide range of foods available
• sophisticated cooking and cuisine

The Agricultural Revolution: Crash Course World History #1

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