See also agriculture; architecture; art; astronomy;
calendars and clocks; death and burial practices;
drama and theater; economics; family; food and
drink; foreigners and barbarians; gender structures
and roles; literature; military; music and musical
instruments; natural disasters; religion and cosmol-
ogy; sacred sites; sports and recreation; trade and
exchange; war and conquest.
FURTHER READING
Christopher W. Blackwell and Amy Hackney Blackwell, Mythology
for Dummies (New York: Hungry Minds, 2002).
Michael Coe, Th e Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership (Princeton,
N.J.: Art Museum, 1995).
Mark E. Cohen, Th e Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East
(Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1993).
Sherif El-Sabban, Temple Festival Calendars of Ancient Egypt (Liv-
erpool, U.K.: Liverpool University Press, 2000).
Anita Ganeri, Hindu Festivals throughout the Year (Mankato, Minn.:
Smart Apple Media, 2003).
Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge, Th e Dramatic Festivals of Ath-
ens, 2nd ed. (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1968).
H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981).
Carol Stepanchuk and Charles Wong, Mooncakes and Hungry
Ghosts: Festivals of China (San Francisco, Calif.: China Books
and Periodicals, 1991).
Robert Turcan, Th e Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life
from Archaic to Imperial Times (New York: Routledge, 2001).
▶ food and diet
introduction
Th e earliest humans were “hunter-gatherers,” meaning that
their food supply came from hunting animals and gathering
plant foods that grew naturally without their help. Clearly, a
community’s diet depended on the nature of the foodstuff s
found in that part of the world. Hunters searched for large
game animals, small animals (including rodents and, among
some people, even bats), birds (including their eggs), seafood,
and fi sh. Plant food included leafy vegetables and greens, nuts,
roots, grains, honey, berries, and other fruits. Food supplies
were aff ected by the season of the year, and early hunter-gath-
erer societies moved about in search of food as conditions in
the environment changed. Famine and starvation were their
principal enemies, and these enemies were never very far
away. In an era of short life expectancies, the concept of a
“balanced diet” would have been meaningless. Hunter-gath-
erers ate what they could fi nd when they could fi nd it, and
they hoped that tomorrow they could fi nd more.
Th e development of agriculture introduced some mea-
sure of securit y into t he life of ancient peoples, and t his added
security enabled them to form more complex and sophisti-
cated civilizations. Now they had at least some control over
the availability of food, and with a little luck they could store
food for the future and avoid starvation. One major result was
a dramatic increase in the world’s population. Food surpluses
allowed ancient peoples to support classes of craft smen,
builders, civil servants, warriors, priests, artists, and poets,
enriching the life of the community.
Still, ancient peoples were constrained by their envi-
ronment, and the nature of the crops they could grow or the
animals they could raise depended on such matters as tem-
perature, rainfall, soil conditions, elevation, and the like. An-
cient agriculturalists were acutely aware of changing seasons
and weather conditions, and they took what steps they could
to accommodate their farming practices to local conditions.
Th e ancient Egyptians, for example, lived along the Nile River
valley, a fertile region surrounded by harsh deserts. Each year
the Nile fl ooded; when its waters receded, they left behind
a layer of rich silt, where they Egyptians planted crops. Th e
Egyptians became adept at water management, building a
massive system of canals and dikes to store and distribute
water for irrigation during the dry season.
Nearly every culture in the world developed a single sta-
ple crop that formed the bulk of its diet. In ancient Greece
and Rome, for example, wheat was the main staple crop,
so bread was an important part of the diet, supplemented
by fruits and vegetables, oils (such as olive oil), legumes
(that is, beans such as lentils), and fi sh. In Asia low-lying
wetlands were ideal for rice cultivation, so rice became the
staple crop, while in parts of the Americas, corn and beans
were the main crops. Animal husbandry enabled some ag-
riculturalists to maintain herds of cattle, sheep, goats, oxen,
or pigs as well as birds, such as chickens, ducks, and geese.
Th ese animals supplied not only meat but also eggs, milk,
and products derived from milk, such as cheese and but-
ter. Most cultures, too, found a way to preserve beverages
such as beer and wine; they could depend on these types
of fermented beverages to remain wholesome and drinkable
over time.AFRICA
BY MICHAEL J. O’NEAL
Th e history of food and diet begins with the consumption
patterns of ancient Africans, the fi rst humans who faced the
need to fi nd sustenance in the natural world around them.
As in any geographical region, the types of foods early Afri-
cans consumed tended to vary by climate and terrain. Th us,
for example, coastal East Africans relied more heavily on fi sh
and seafood than did people who inhabited the interior of the
continent. Crops that fl ourished in the highlands of Ethiopia
might not have done as well in lowland areas and vice versa.
Foods that were available in lush, forested regions of the con-
tinent were not as widely available in the hot, dry savannahs
of central Africa. Furthermore, climate changes over the mil-
lennia altered food and dietary habits. At one time much of
the Sahara was lush and green, but in about 6000 b.c.e. the472 festivals: further reading