1st Edition

The Prehistory of Food Appetites for Change

Edited By Chris Gosden, Jon G. Hather Copyright 1999
    540 Pages
    by Routledge

    540 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Prehistory of Food sets subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. It brings together contributors with a scientific and biological expertise as well as those interested in the patterns of consumption and social change, and includes a wide range of case studies.

    Preface, Introduction, Chris Gosden. Part I: Food and Culture, Andrew Sherratt, Cash Crops before cash: hunting, farming, manufacture and trade in earlier Eurasia, Christine Hastorf, Cultural Implications of Crop introductions in Andean prehistory, Alejandro Haber, Uywana, the house and its indoor landscape: oblique approaches to, and beyond, domestication, Soren Blau, Of water and oil: exploitation of natural resources and social change in eastern Arabia, Gustavo Politis, Plant exploitation among the Nukak hunter-gathers of Amazonia: between ecology and ideology. Part II: Introductions, Helen Leach, Food processing technology: its role in inhibiting or promoting change in staple foods, K. Mehra, Subsistence changes in India and Pakistan: the Neolithic and Chalcolithic from the point of view of plant use today, Sarah Nelson, Megalithic monuments and the introduction of rice into Korea, Catherine Andrea, Dispersal of domesticated plants into northeastern Japan, Elizabeth Reitz, Native Americans and animal husbandry in the North American colony of Florida. Part III: Food and the Landscape, Tim Bayliss-Smith & Jack Golsen, The meaning of ditches: deconstructing the social landscapes of New Guinea, Kuk, phase 4, Chris Godsen & Lesley Head, Different histories: Papua New Guinea and Australia compared, Christophe Sand, From the swamp to the terrace: intensification of horticultural practices in New Caledonia, from first settlement to European contact, Robert Kuhlken, Warfare and intensive agriculture in Fiji, Carol Palmer, Who's land is it anyway? An historical examination of land tenure and agriculture in northern Jordon, Ken Thomas, Getting a life: stability and change in social and subsistence systems on the North-West Frontier (Pakistan) in later prehistory, Yuri Vostretsov, Interaction of maritime and agricultural adaptation in Japan sea basin, Kevin MacDonald, Invisible Pastoralists: sedentists and livestock remains in the later prehistory of arid West Africa, Willem van Zeist, Evidence for agricultural change in the Balikh basin, Northern Syria. Part IV: Plants and People, Edmond de Langhe & P. de Maret, Tracking the banana: significance to early agriculture, Randi Haaland, Theory and evidence in archaeological interpretation of the transition from gathering to domestication: the puzzle of the late emergence of domesticated sorghum in the Nile Valley, Deborah Pearsall, The impact of maize on subsistence systems in South America: an example from the Jama River Valley, Coastal Equador, Michael Therin, Richard Fullagar & Richard Torrence, Starch in sediments: a new approach to the study of subsistence and land use in Papua New Guinea, A. Butler, Traditional seed cropping systems in the temperate Old World: models for antiquity, George Wilcox, Agrarian change and the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East: evidence from wild projenitors, experimental cultivation and archaeobotanical data.

    Biography

    Chris Gosden, Jon G. Hather