Reference no: EM133744823

Assignment: Anthropology Human Origins & Prehistory

Your Neolithic Kitchen

Introduction: As highlighted by the textbook and during lectures, the Neolithic Revolution has had a profound impact on the types and diversity of food consumed by most human populations today. This includes the grains and vegetables we eat daily, as well as many of the animals we raise and subsequently consume in the form of dairy products (e.g., milk, cheeses, yogurt, etc.) and cooked flesh (e.g., steak and burgers, chicken wings, BBQ, stews, etc.). In many respects, it is hard to envision the current state of society in the absence of the Neolithic and transition from hunting and gathering as the primary means of subsistence to food production, including farming and animal husbandry.

Description: In lieu of an in-class exercise, you are being asked to go home and examine your kitchen (or on-campus cafeteria). Identify one grain and either one vegetable or animal-derived product that you consume today that resulted from the Neolithic Revolution. Once you have identified two (e.g., rice or potatoes and tomatoes or lamb) and taken photos of each as part of your typical cuisine, you then need to investigate their origins. Use Wikipedia, your textbook, the class lectures, or other online resources to answer the following questions for your two food products:

A. When and where was the food product domesticated?

B. What was the wild ancestor of the food product (e.g., teosinte → maize [corn])?

C. How is the wild ancestor of the food product visually and otherwise different from the modern version of the food product?

D. How do archaeologists and allied scientists believe the food product was domesticated and subsequently spread (over space and time) from the site(s) of domestication?

E. In your opinion, how different does the modern food product look as compared with the wild ancestor?

Answer the five questions above for each food product in no more than two or three paragraphs. If available, please include a picture or artist's rendition (from the internet) of the wild ancestor to accompany your photograph of each food product that you consume today. Please submit your completed assignment via Canvas by Day, Date at midnight. Have some fun with this assignment and get to know a little bit more about the origins of the food you regularly consume. If you have any questions between now and the deadline, please do not hesitate to contact me via Canvas or email.