ANTHR 2165 - They Were What They Ate: Food in the Ancient World

(crosslisted) ARKEO 2165
(GHB) (HA-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

D. Bardolph.

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are,” wrote renowned gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825. Since then, it has become axiomatic within anthropology that social relationships are constructed through food-related practices and embodied in food, from the most basic tasks of acquiring food resources to the social and political contexts of the consumption of food and drink. In this course, we will consider the theoretical and methodological approaches that archaeologists use to study food and eating in ancient societies from a global anthropological perspective. Topics to be addressed include transitions to agriculture; ritual foodways; feasting and politics; gender and identity; colonialism; and food scarcity. Readings will include a range of Old and New World case studies.