Submitted by Ray Laurence on Mon, 01/18/2010 - 16:14
By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Egypt in the south. Around this empire flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands: slaves, spices, precious stones, and coloured marble, as well as an exotic array of foods and wine. From this bounty, the Romans created a culture of pleasure and a passion for sensations that stimulated all the human senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch and so on. A global world of pleasure had arrived.
Submitted by Michael Kan on Fri, 01/15/2010 - 13:59
Drunkenness, hangovers, and debauchery tend to come to mind when one thinks about alcohol and its effects. But could alcohol also have been a catalyst for human civilization?
According to archaeologist Patrick McGovern this may have been the case when early man decided to start farming. Why humans turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture could be the result of our ancestors’ simple urge for alcoholic beverages.
“Alcohol provided the initial motivation,” said McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. “Then it got going the engine of society.”
Submitted by Jacqui Wood on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 20:55
As an experimental archaeologist and independent researcher, I've spent the last 30 years investigating the eating habits of ancient civilisations - including their ancient Christmas dinners. Here are some tips and recipes for the perfect xmas dinner that I've collected along the way.
I use a technique that I've developed over the years to explore the practical aspects of the daily lives of prehistoric Europeans. The approach is based on the theory that the inherent skills and ingenuity of prehistoric European is still latent in the people of Europe today. But the skills of surviving in the northern European landscape have been forgotten because we no longer have a use for them in our modern-day society.
During my researches I have discovered that these skills are very easily acquired – particularly if one is not impeded by any training in the skill to be researched. It has to be approached purely by logic. It is essential, though, not to single out any particular skill, but to attempt to do all the required jobs that a prehistoric settlement would have to do to survive.
The history of food and how we gather and consume it is as long and involved as the history of humanity. It is intertwined with almost every aspect of human evolution. We eat. We always have and probably always will, although the attention given to what we eat and how we obtain it varies depending on the relative opulence of the times.
A History of Food is a concise yet massively entertaining read that looks at the earliest hunter-gatherer societies and moves on to bring readers right up to the modern day phenomena of mass-produced, refined, scientifically formulated food products.
By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Egypt in the south. Around this empire flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands: slaves, spices, precious stones, and coloured marble, as well as an exotic array of foods and wine. From this bounty, the Romans created a culture of pleasure and a passion for sensations that stimulated all the human senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch and so on. A global world of pleasure had arrived.
As an experimental archaeologist and independent researcher, I've spent the last 30 years investigating the eating habits of ancient civilisations - including their ancient Christmas dinners. Here are some tips and recipes for the perfect xmas dinner that I've collected along the way.
