Studying Food in the Past
This is another name for piles of waste, often containing things like shells and animal bones, created by humans that archaeologists study.
middens
This invention led to a host of benefits, including easier digestion of food, making nutrients more accessible, allowing us to access food resources that were previously inedible and allowed us to preserve food for longer periods of time.
cooking
This area of the world ~9000 BCE has the earliest evidence of agriculture.
Fertile Crescent
This is a term for foods that are considered culturally unacceptable or restricted.
Food taboo (or food proscription)
Between organic material and inorganic material, this is more likely to preserve longer.
Inorganic
This is the name for fossilized feces that are really useful for telling us what ancient people actually ate.
coprolites
This period, which also means 'Old Stone Age', started about ~3.3 mya with the advent of stone tools.
Paleolithic
This region of the world starting farming around ~6500 BCE and domesticated plants like sugarcane, bananas, and sago.
Papua New Guinea
This is learned and shared patterns of behaviours and beliefs.
culture
All the evidence collected from or observed at an archaeological site make up this.
assemblage
This element is the best option if you are interested in examining the introduction of maize (corn) to an area.
carbon
When our gut shrank, according to the 'expensive tissue hypothesis', we had room for this to get bigger.
brain
This was the earliest domesticated animal, likely domesticated through the commensal/mutual domestication pathway.
dog
This religion follows kosher dietary laws.
Judaism
These are the 3 different pathways suggested for animal domestication.
Commensal/mutual, game management, and directed.
This element is the best option if you are interested in the age at which people were weaned.
Carbon
This is the name of the early tool that likely allowed us to break open bones & skulls to access bone marrow & brains to eat.
Oldowan chopper
This is the term that describes the natural release of seeds from a plant when they are ripe, however one thing we often see in domesticated plants like wheat is reduced ________.
shattering
This term is used to describe food that is permissible under Islamic law.
Halal
This is what eggs at Easter symbolize.
New life and rebirth/Jesus' resurrection
This element is the best option if you have high δ13C values and you want to see if it is due to consumption of corn or consumption of marine fish.
Nitrogen
Some of the earliest believed evidence of Hominin fire use date back to approximately this many years ago at sites like sites like Koobi Fora.
1.5 million years ago
These are 3 of the 5 traits you might look for when picking an animal to domesticate.
Any 3 of: diet should not compete with humans; rapid growth rate; not be too aggressive; not have a tendency to panic; or live in permanent herds & have a well-developed dominance structure
The name of the unleavened bread consumed during Seder that symbolizes the speed which the Jewish people left Egypt.
Matzo/Matzah
Plants, like cacti, that use both C4 and C3 methods of photosynthesis are called this.
CAM plants