Stranger than Fiction

Being interested in both prehistory and in food history, I was attracted by the title of this book –   Ancestral Appetites: Food in Prehistory by Kristen J. Gremillion, 2011. This is also my choice for the category Food , in the 2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge . Gremillion is a Professor of Anthropology at The Ohio State University who specializes in paleoethnobotany. In the Introduction , Gremillion states, “Like most mammals, and especially as primates, we have a versatile behavioral repertoire; when it comes to inventing ways to catch, harvest, prepare, and consume food, we have no rivals.” And explains that in this book, “I explore how this complex system of dietary adaptation developed to generate the diversity of human foodways present today.” She doesn’t focus on specific cuisines or “recipes,” but rather the development of hunting, gathering, farming, husbandry as well as techniques of cooking, preparation, fermenting, etc. Although Gremillion doesn’t focus on specifi...

  At the beginning of the first chapter of  How to Think Like a Neandertal , the authors Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (2012) explain their spelling choice of ‘Neandertal’ (instead of ‘Neanderthal’), so I use that spelling in this review. [Both spellings are correct and are pronounced the same.] But aside from the spelling choice, I do not like the title of the book. First, it sounds like the book will be about how to emulate the thinking process of Neandertals (similar to the books, How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci, Like Sherlock Holmes , Like a Roman Emperor, Like a Computer Scientist, etc . ). And this book is nothing like that. Second, the title doesn’t fit the valid, academic focus of the book. Instead, this book concentrates on building a picture of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on evidence from archaeology and psychology. The authors are professors at the University of Colorado. Wynn teaches Anthropology and Coolidge is a professor of Psychology....