Food in the Ancient World

Co-taught with Dr. Anna Guengerich

Never in human history have so many foods been available to so many, for so cheap. And yet for much of the world, our relationship with appears to be increasingly problematic. For many people, one solution for addressing these problems in the future is to look to the past for answers. Have we learned anything over 200,000 years of eating as human beings? What have we forgotten? This course uses archaeological and historical perspectives to understand major changes—as well as continuities—in the human experience of eating from our hominid beginnings until the major changes of the 19th-20th centuries. We will examine how food shapes our relationship with our bodies, with the natural environment, and with each other, through a framework of three major questions: Were foodways of the past better for our health? Were they better for the planet? And were the plagued by the same kinds of inequalities seen in the present?