ANTH 1511 - PALEOKITCHEN

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
Animals feed. People eat. For all humans, eating is a profoundly cultural experience, everywhere expressive of sociality and worldview and linked to complex and deeply ingrained notions of the appropriate. But when and how did eating become so? This course examines foodways from the earliest hominids of 2 million years ago through the cuisines of some of the great civilizations of the ancient world. Taking a social perspective, we explore broad questions central to understanding eating: (1) What is the basis for human food choices, now and in the past? (2) How did broad shifts in the past, such as the development of agriculture or social inequality, shape foodways? (3) How have social roles, dynamics, and worldviews found expression in the food practices of past cultures? To address these issues, we will explore the human foodways from various evolutionary, physiological, and cultural viewpoints, highlighted by information from the best archaeological case studies. Topics that will be covered include current debates over hominid diet; the nature of the first cooking; what is great about beer; archaeological techniques for reconstructing subsistence and cooking patterns; the development of food preparation spaces (kitchens); gender roles in foodways; meaning in commensality and feasting; and will compare the nature of ancient cuisines (including those of the civilizations of the ancient Middle East, South America, Africa, and South Asia, and China. Ultimately, we will see how the subject of ancient eating can provide important insights into some of the most fundamental issues in anthropology: nature vs. culture, causal forces in evolution, the relationship between social organization, daily activities and ideology, the expressions of choices in everyday life, and the manner in which people become encultured, form identities, and relate to one another, to nature, and to the cosmos.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Seminar
Grade Component: Letter Grade

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