Kenyan woman
Photographs Leah Love, Atlanta
A fluctuating consumption The man is distinguished rather little from the other animals by his food needs, but much by his ways of nourishing itself: he adapts, processes natural foods by the kitchen, practical ritual and manners of table, is devoted to orgiastic consumption or with the voluntary fast, etc the human consumption thus raises about the desire. However, during the history, the climatic risks, demographic, political, economic did not cease bringing back the food of the men in the strict field of the need.
The oldest manners to find its food are hunting, fishing and the gathering. Thus the prehistoric men of neolitic lived, and lived still recently the companies of hunters-gatherers of Africa, Australia or Amazonia. Contrary to a spread idea, this mode of subsistence is largely enough, generally, with the satisfaction of the food and nutritional needs for the group, which remains very few; a good knowledge of the natural environment enables him to manage the resources in an optimal way.
However, during prehistory, the natural conditions evolve, sometimes brutally, as during the general warming of the Earth which begins towards 8 ' 500 before J. - C. (period of the Mesolithic era), involving the very important retreat of the glaciers of the Alps and Scandinavia. Fauna and the flora are some modified, obliging the men to change their type of food: the reindeer disappears in the south from the Baltic, with the profit of the dash, the stag, the roe-deer, ox and wild boar. The men drive out with the mounting. They nourish less big game, more of small animals, seeds, grass and fruits.