The proof is in the pudding: feasting and the origins of domestication

Current Anthropology
Brian Hayden

Abstract

Feasting has been proposed as the major context and impetus behind the intensification of production leading to the domestication of plants and animals. This article examines the way feasting contributes to fitness in traditional societies through the reduction of risks involving subsistence, reproduction, and violent confrontations. As other authors have noted, the risk-reduction strategies used by simple foragers differ significantly from risk-reduction strategies used by transegalitarian hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists. These differences are examined in more detail and are related to the emergence of feasting in transegalitarian societies. Surplus-based feasting is proposed as an entirely new element in community dynamics, probably first developed during the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, but becoming much more widespread in the world with the development of Mesolithic technology. Because feasting entails survival and risk-reduction benefits, it creates inherently inflationary food-production forces. These elements first appear among complex hunter-gatherers and logically lead to the intensification of food production, ultimately resulting in the domestication of plants and animals.

Citations

Sep 2, 2010·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Natalie D Munro, Leore Grosman
Mar 9, 2011·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Samuel Bowles
Jan 14, 2011·Annual Review of Medicine·Bradley S Peterson, Myrna M Weissman
Apr 24, 2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Greger LarsonDorian Q Fuller
Oct 19, 2014·American Journal of Botany·BrieAnna S LanglieGayle J Fritz
Jul 19, 2019·PloS One·Gideon Shelach-LaviDorian Q Fuller
Jun 6, 2018·Frontiers in Plant Science·Paulina R Lezama-NúñezJosé R Vallejo
May 18, 2019·Nature Human Behaviour·Patrick H KavanaghMichael C Gavin
May 22, 2018·The Journal of Ecology·Catherine PreeceColin P Osborne

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