Cultural Evolution and Diet

Abstract

Abstract Diet and culture are probably the two most central and entangled sub-plots in the story of human evolution. Most if not all of the major cultural transitions over the last 3 million years had large impacts on diet, and even today, some of the strongest signatures of natural selection in our genomes are linked to dietary change. Failure to adapt to shifts in diet over the past 10,000 years has been implicated in a number of chronic and complex diseases, the so-called ‘diseases of modernity’ including coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. The complex relationships between diet, biology, and culture originate from the earliest stone tool use, if not earlier, and have played key roles in the evolution of many human characteristics, including large brains, reduced gut size, high aerobic capacity, and tool use. Today, food ways and cuisines have strong cultural, ethnic, and geographic associations, and, in some populations, correlate with known biological adaptations. In this chapter we discuss the relationship between diet, culture, and biology through the major Palaeolithic and Neolithic transitions, and how culture and diet—and sometimes our biology—have remained entwined over the past 3 million years and into the present day.