Food Preparation Methods Used In The Neolithic Period

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject World History - Early and Ancient History, The University of Liverpool, course: Diet, Evolution and Culture, language: English, abstract: About 10.000 years go the Neolithic revolution was the starting point of both the domestication of animals and the cultivation of plants in the Near East. Due to climatic changes at the beginning of the Holocene and probably distinctively connected to a variation of food preparation throughout several parts of the earth including Europe, North America and Asia, the introduction of agriculture led to a rapidly increased population, a forthcoming of health and, therefore, a longer life expectancy. For plenty of years, however, this intention was suggested by medical, anthropological as well as evolutionary and social-historical examines. Since the last few decades, the currently regarded conclusions of researchers have been significantly overthrown, as the utilization of computer-assisted technology has been improved and observations dealing with stable isotopic issues rather than archaeological artefacts or morphological alterations have been enlarged. Consequently, new explorations allow further research and more detailed information regarding the evolutionary development of human beings. This paper will firstly elucidate the main fields of evidence to give an insight into the evolutionary process especially when stressing the dietary progress – meaning morphological changes, evidence given by archaeological findings, and bone chemistry. Additionally, the submitted text will point out the transformations of food preparation between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods. Thirdly, the discussion of advantages and disadvantages of Neolithic food grounding will be investigated to give a brief overview permitting an understanding of the currently heavy discussions between scholars pressuring the post-traditional issue of the Neolithic revolution. The aspects ought to be underscored by several case studies. As a result it will be illustrated, that the obviously contrary groups of intentions are based on an equal question of scholarship: how useful are modern technologies reflecting on the evolutionary process and do they actually allow more detailed observations to overcome the hiatus of data due to the development of human beings?

This volume focuses on the ways in which the production and consumption of food developed in the Aegean region in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, to see how this was linked to the appearance of more complex forms of social organisation. Sites from Macedonia in the north of Greece down to Crete are discussed and chronologically the papers cover not only the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age but extend into the Middle and Late Bronze Age and Classical period as well. The evidence from human remains, animal and fish bones, cultivated and wild plants, hearths and ovens, ceramics and literary texts is interpreted through a range of techniques, such as residue and stable isotope analysis. A number of key themes emerge, for example the changes in the types of food that were produced around the time of the Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition, which is seen as a particularly critical period, the ways in which foodstuffs were stored and cooked, the significance of culinary innovations and the social role of consumption.

This book provides an outstanding collection of interdisciplinary and international essays examining the food-place relationship. It explores such topics as the history of food and agriculture, the globalization and localization of food, and the role of place in defining the broader societal consequences of this ever-changing phenomena.

A compelling reflection on the origins of cooking by Ferran Adrià, the most creative and influential chef of the 21st century.

Introduction to Food Science and Technology focuses on the importance of food science and food technology to humans. This book discusses the total sequence of operations in food technology, which includes the selection of raw materials, processing, preservation, and distribution. Comprised of nine chapters, this monograph starts with an overview of the processing and storage of food. This book examines how the food processor often controls the producer’s operations by demanding a raw product of a certain type in order to satisfy a particular processing and consumer demand. Other chapters consider the primary concern of food scientists and technologists in the processing and preservation of raw agricultural products as nutritious and stable foods of acceptable quality. The final chapter deals with the variety of jobs available for those trained in the biological, physical, and behavioral sciences and their applications to food processing and food preservation. Food technologists, chemists, and scientists will find this book extremely useful.

Although the archaeology of food has long played an integral role in our understanding of past cultures, the archaeology of cooking is rarely integrated into models of the past. The cooks who spent countless hours cooking and processing food are overlooked and the forgotten players in the daily lives of our ancestors. The Menial Art of Cooking shows how cooking activities provide a window into other aspects of society and, as such, should be taken seriously as an aspect of social, cultural, political, and economic life. This book examines techniques and technologies of food preparation, the spaces where food was cooked, the relationship between cooking and changes in suprahousehold economies, the religious and symbolic aspects of cooking, the relationship between cooking and social identity, and how examining foodways provides insight into social relations of production, distribution, and consumption. Contributors use a wide variety of evidence—including archaeological data; archival research; analysis of ceramics, fauna, botany, glass artifacts, stone tools, murals, and painted ceramics; ethnographic analogy; and the distribution of artifacts across space—to identify evidence of cooking and food processing left by ancient cooks. The Menial Art of Cooking is the first archaeological volume focused on cooking and food preparation in prehistoric and historic settings around the world and will interest archaeologists, social anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars studying cooking and food preparation or subsistence.

The Second Edition of this popular textbook has benefited from several years of exposure to both teachers and students. Based on their own experiences as well as those of others, the authors have reorganized, added, and updated this work to meet the needs of the current curriculum. As with the first edition the goal is to introduce the beginning student to the field of food science and technology. Thus, the book discusses briefly the complex of basic sciences fundamental to food processing and preservation as well as the application of these sciences to the technology of providing the consumer with food products that are at once appealing to the eye, pleasing to the palate, and nutritious to the human organism. Introduction to Food Science and Technology is set in the world in which it operates; it contains discussions of historical development, the current world food situation, the safety regulations and laws that circumscribe the field, and the careers that it offers.

Proceedings of a workshop held in Berlin, 2018, focusing on manufacturing activities identified at archaeological sites. New excavation techniques, ethnographic research, archaeometric approaches, GIS, experimental archaeology, and theoretical issues associated with how researchers understand production in the past, are presented here.