Neolithic Eating Patterns

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Eating Patterns in the Neolithic Era (10,000 years ago) Depending on the region, the era started around the 9000 B.C. and finished at about 3000 B.C. Since history could vary from person to person, and from region to region, the Neolithic period in Europe as a whole, began after 7000 B.C. (1, Whittle). The Neolithic period is generally characterized by three major events out which the most concerning event is the shift of economy-based agriculture. The Neolithic Period was known for major economic changes in our civilization, especially in Europe (55, Jones). Before 10,000 years ago, in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic Period, almost all parts of Europe were covered in ice. Starting the Neolithic period, the ice caps started to melt and our world…show more content…
Humans in this period began to learn how to produce their food through farming and not to acquire them through hunting only. With more people involved in farming and producing food through the activity, the pressure on animal hunting decreased, and this reduced the amount of meat eaten by our Neolithic ancestors. With the agricultural revolution, humans began cultivating plants such as lentils, barley, flax, wheat, and gradually, all the crops we see in our society today. The transformation to farming happened at different times in several different places around the world. The concept of farming reached from the Syria and Iraq to Britain around 5000 B.C and 4500 B.C., and it later spread throughout Europe. There are beliefs that the farming was introduced in Britain through a huge migration. Today with various studies on DNA shows that about 20% of the total British populations are “newcomers” (p.7, Pryor). So it is assumable that majority of early peasants were our Mesolithic ancestors who had adopted new means of life and had taken it along with them to other parts of Britain. The new means of life her refers to a life where people focused less on meat consumptions and began to tend more towards green/plant consumptions. A remarkable aspect of the Neolithic diets is that all the foods were unprocessed. Our Neolithic ancestors consumed whole foods such as whole grains, beans, legumes, vegetables, meats, dairy and fruits. No diets such as today with loads of processed sugary foods were found in the Neolithic Period. Fundamentally, the Neolithic diets reflected the common recommendations for a healthy diet in our society today. In contrast to the Paleolithic diets, which were very much protein-based, the Neolithic diets had a much higher intake of cereal and vegetables obtained from the farming. In times of declined environmental conditions, some of our Neolithic ancestors
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