Ancestral Appetites

This book explores the relationship between prehistoric people and their food – what they ate, why they ate it, and how researchers have pieced together the story of past foodways from material traces. Contemporary human food traditions encompass a seemingly infinite variety, but all are essentially strategies for meeting basic nutritional needs developed over millions of years. Humans are designed by evolution to adjust our feeding behavior and food technology to meet the demands of a wide range of environments through a combination of social and experiential learning. In this book, Kristen J. Gremillion demonstrates how these evolutionary processes have shaped the diversification of human diet over several million years of prehistory. She draws on evidence extracted from the material remains that provide the only direct evidence of how people procured, prepared, presented, and consumed food in prehistoric times.

• Highlights the archaeological record of human diet and food culture, showing how cutting-edge science has vastly increased our knowledge over the last few decades
• Acknowledges that evolutionary history, social learning and innovation by individuals must all be a part of a complete understanding of human diet and foodways
• Asks what we can learn today from the diet and culture of prehistoric people