This is a timeline of human food and food-related cultural habits, as well as those of our closest extinct relatives. The cut-off point for inclusion is the separation of the Hominina from Pan, the genus that includes modern-day chimpanzees.
Prehistoric times 5-2 million years ago: Hominids shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to begin the consumption of meat.
2.5-1.8 million years ago: The discovery of the use of fire may have created a sense of sharing as a group. Earliest estimate for invention of cooking, by phylogenetic analysis. 250,000 years ago: Earliest uncontroversial archaeological evidence of hearths. 170,000 years ago: Cooked starchy roots and tubers in Africa. 40,000 years ago: First evidence of human fish consumption: isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish. 30,000 years ago: Earliest archaeological evidence for flour, which was likely processed into an unleavened bread, dates to the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe. 25,000 years ago: The fish-gorge, a kind of fish hook, appears. 13,000 BCE: Contentious evidence of oldest domesticated rice in Korea. Their 15,000-year age challenges the accepted view that rice cultivation originated in China about 12,000 years ago. These findings were received by academia with strong skepticism, and the results and their publicizing has been cited as being driven by a combination of nationalist and regional interests. 12,500 BCE: The oldest evidence of bread-making, found in a Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert. 11,500 - 6200 BCE: Genetic evidence published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) shows that all forms of Asian rice, both indica and japonica, spring from a single domestication that occurred 8,200–13,500 years ago in China of the wild rice Oryza rufipogon.
Neolithic
~9300 BCE: Figs cultivated in the Jordan Valley ~8000 BCE: Squash was grown in Mexico 8000-5000 BCE: Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence of banana cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. 8000-5000 BCE: Earliest domestication of potato in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca. ~8000 BCE: Wild olives were collected by Neolithic peoples ~7000 BCE: Cereal (grain) production in Syria ~7000 BCE: Farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods and fires as part of their cultivation regimen. ~7000 BCE: Maize-like plants, derived from the wild teosinte, began to be seen in Mexico. ~7000 BCE: Chinese villagers were brewing fermented alcoholic drinks on small and individual scale, with the production process and methods similar to that of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. ~7000 BCE: Sheep, originating from western Asia, were domesticated with the help of dogs prior to the establishment of settled agriculture. 7000-5000 BCE: Pumpkin fragments found in Mexico are the oldest evidence of Cucurbita pepo. 6570-4530 BCE: Earliest and controversial estimation of rice cultivation in India. 6140-4550 BCE: Archaeological evidence of fish processing and long-term storage at the Atlit-Yam site, in what is now Israel. ~6000 BCE: Grapes were first grown for wine in the Southern Caucasus. ~5500 BCE: Earliest secure evidence of cheesemaking in Kujawy, Poland. ~5000 BCE: Cattle were domesticated in Mesopotamia after settled agriculture was established ~5000 BCE: Modern-like maize varieties appear. ~5000 BCE: Beans begin to be cultivated in the Americas. ~5000 BCE: Fossilized remains of possibly cultivated potato tubers on a cave floor in Chilca Canyon.
4000-2000 BCE
Earliest archaeological evidence for leavened bread is from ancient Egypt. The extent to which bread was leavened in ancient Egypt remains uncertain. 4500–3500 BCE: Earliest clear evidence of olive domestication and olive oil extraction. ~4000 BCE: Watermelon, originally domesticated in central Africa, becomes an important crop in northern Africa and southwestern Asia. ~4000 BCE: Agriculture reaches north-eastern Europe. ~4000 BCE: Dairy is documented in the grasslands of the Sahara. 4000 BCE: Citron seeds in Mesopotamian excavations. ~3900 BCE: In Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq), early evidence of beer is a Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, which contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via bread. ~3600 BCE: Date of the oldest definitive known evidence for popcorn, discovered in New Mexico, United States. It is attributed to the Ancestral Puebloan peoples, who maintained trade networks with peoples in tropical Mexico. ~3500 BCE: Beer produced in what is today Iran. ~3500 BCE: Aquaculture starts in China with the farming of the common carp. ~3500–3000 BCE: Several breeds of sheep were established in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. ~3000 BCE: Palm oil found in a tomb in Abydos. ~3000 BCE: Grape cultivation for wine had spread to the Fertile Crescent, the Jordan Valley and Egypt. ~3000 BCE: Sunflowers are first cultivated in North America. ~3000 BCE: South America's Andes region cultivates potato. ~3000 BCE: Archaeological evidence of watermelon cultivation in ancient Egypt. Watermelons appeared on wall paintings; seeds and leaves were deposited in tombs. ~3000 BCE: Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes ~3000 BCE: Two alabaster jars found at Saqqara, dating from the First Dynasty of Egypt, contained cheese. These were placed in the tomb about 3000 BC. ~2500 BCE: Domestic pigs, which are descended from wild boars, are known to have existed about 2500 BC in modern-day Hungary and in Troy; earlier pottery from Jericho and Egypt depicts wild pigs. ~2500 BCE: Pearl millet was domesticated in the Sahel region of West Africa, evidence for the cultivation of pearl millet in Mali. 2500–1500 BCE: Time range of several sites with archaeological evidence of potato being consumed and cultivated in the South American continent. 2000–1500 BCE: Rice cultivation in the upper and middle Ganges begins. ~2000 BCE: Visual evidence of Egyptian cheesemaking found in Egyptian tomb murals.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
