tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/feasts-47715/articlesFeasts – The Conversation2021-07-23T12:15:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1640382021-07-23T12:15:40Z2021-07-23T12:15:40ZWhat would the ancient Greeks think of an Olympics with no fans?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412725/original/file-20210722-17-fsy5rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C7%2C4862%2C3248&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In ancient Greece, the heart and soul of the festival was the experience shared by all who attended.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXOlympicsTokyoTestEvent/e84cff78e2444d3599282d4b5a3a48d6/photo?Query=(headline:APTOPIX%20OR%20slug:APTOPIX)%20AND%20Tokyo%20Olympics%20stadium&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=30&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Because of a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases, the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2021 Olympics will unfold in a stadium <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/world/asia/tokyo-state-of-emergency-olympics.html">absent the eyes, ears and voices</a> of a once-anticipated 68,000 ticket holders from around the world. Events during the intervening days will likewise occur in silent arenas missing the hundreds of thousands of spectators who paid US$815 million for their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/sports/olympics/tokyo-olympics-ticket-refunds.html">now-useless tickets</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1003238">After 48 years teaching classics</a>, I can’t help but wonder what the Greeks – who invented the Games nearly 3,000 years ago, in 776 B.C. – would make of such a ghostly version of their Olympic festival.</p>
<p>In many ways, they’d view the prospect as absurd.</p>
<p>In ancient Greece, the Olympics were never solely about the athletes themselves; instead, the heart and soul of the festival was the experience shared by all who attended. Every four years, athletes and spectators traveled from far-flung corners of the Greek-speaking world to Olympia, lured by a longing for contact with their compatriots and their gods. </p>
<h2>In the shadow of dreams</h2>
<p>For the Greeks, during five days in the late-summer heat, two worlds miraculously merged at Olympia: the domain of everyday life, with its human limits, and a supernatural sphere from the days superior beings, gods and heroes populated Earth. </p>
<p>Greek athletics, like today’s, plunged participants into performances that pushed the envelope of human ability to its breaking point. But to the Greeks, the cauldron of competition could trigger revelations in which ordinary mortals might briefly intermingle with the extraordinary immortals. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pindar">The poet Pindar</a>, famous for the victory songs he composed for winners at Olympia, captured this sort of transcendent moment <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Pind.+P.+8&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162">when he wrote</a>, “Humans are creatures of a day. But what is humankind? What is it not? A human is just the shadow of a dream – but when a flash of light from Zeus comes down, a shining light falls on humans and their lifetime can be sweet as honey.”</p>
<p>However, these epiphanies could occur only if witnesses were physically present to immerse themselves – and share in – the spine-tingling flirtation with the divine. </p>
<p>Simply put, Greek athletics and religious experience were inseparable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The ruins – which include an intact section of the arched entrance tunnel – of the Greek Stadium of Olympia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412729/original/file-20210722-27-1wrz6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Crypt, the entrance to the Stadium of Olympia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-crypt-entrance-to-the-stadium-of-olympia-greece-greek-news-photo/587760609?adppopup=true">DeAgostini/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>At Olympia, both athletes and spectators were making a pilgrimage to a sacred place. A modern Olympics can legitimately take place in any city selected by the International Olympic Committee. But the ancient games could occur in only one location in western Greece. The most profoundly moving events didn’t even occur in the stadium that accommodated 40,000 or in the wrestling and boxing arenas. </p>
<p>Instead, they took place in a grove <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/517/">called the Althis</a>, where Hercules is said to have first erected an altar, sacrificed oxen to Zeus and planted a wild olive tree. Easily half the events during the festival engrossed spectators not in feats like discus, javelin, long jump, foot race and wrestling, but in feasts <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/olympic-self-sacrifice">where animals were sacrificed</a> to gods in heaven and long-dead heroes whose spirits still lingered. </p>
<p>On the evening of the second day, thousands gathered in the Althis to reenact the <a href="http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/TP022EN.html">funeral rites of Pelops</a>, a human hero who once raced a chariot to win a local chief’s daughter. But the climactic sacrifice was on the morning of the third day at the <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/greekpast/4905.html">Great Altar of Zeus</a>, a mound of plastered ashes from previous sacrifices that stood 22 feet tall and 125 feet around. <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/health/sport-and-fitness/the-ancient-olympics-bridging-past-and-present/content-section-7">In a ritual called the hecatomb</a>, 100 bulls were slaughtered and their thigh bones, wrapped in fat, burned atop the altar so that the rising smoke and aroma would reach the sky where Zeus could savor it. </p>
<p>No doubt many a spectator shivered at the thought of Zeus hovering above them, smiling and remembering Hercules’ first sacrifice.</p>
<p>Just a few yards from the Great Altar another, more visual encounter with the god awaited. <a href="https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/hesperia/25067954.pdf">In the Temple of Zeus</a>, which was erected around 468 to 456 B.C., stood a colossal image, 40 feet high, of the god on a throne, his skin carved from ivory and his clothing made of gold. In one hand he held the elusive goddess of victory, Nike, and in the other a staff on which his sacred bird, the eagle, perched. The towering statue was reflected in <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Statue_of_Zeus_at_Olympia/">a shimmering pool of olive oil</a> surrounding it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Ruins surround a lone pillar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412716/original/file-20210722-19-7n5tml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The remains of the Ancient Temple of Zeus at Olympia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-ancient-temple-of-zeus-at-olympia-royalty-free-image/552042863?adppopup=true">SPC#JAYJAY/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>During events, the athletes performed in the nude, imitating heroic figures like Hercules, Theseus or Achilles, who all crossed the dividing line between human and superhuman and were usually represented nude in painting and sculpture.</p>
<p>The athletes’ nudity declared to spectators that in this holy place, contestants hoped to reenact, in the ritual of sport, the shudder of contact with divinity. In the Althis stood a forest of <a href="https://www.greek-thesaurus.gr/Ancient-Olympia-the-sanctuary.html">hundreds of nude statues of men and boys</a>, all previous victors whose images set the bar for aspiring newcomers. </p>
<p>“There are a lot of truly marvelous things one can see and hear about in Greece,” the Greek travel writer <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+5.10.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160">Pausanias noted in the second century B.C.</a>, “but there is something unique about how the divine is encountered at … the games at Olympia.”</p>
<h2>Communion and community</h2>
<p>The Greeks lived in roughly <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/greek-city-states/">1,500 to 2,000 small-scale states</a> scattered across the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. </p>
<p>Since sea travel in summertime was the only viable way to cross this fragile geographical web, the Olympics might entice a Greek living in Southern Europe and another residing in modern-day Ukraine to interact briefly in a festival celebrating not only Zeus and Heracles but also the Hellenic language and culture that produced them. </p>
<p>Besides athletes, poets, philosophers and orators came to perform before crowds that included politicians and businessmen, with everyone communing in an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_feeling">“oceanic feeling”</a> of what it meant to be momentarily united as Greeks.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412727/original/file-20210722-19-s2friq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A detail of a Greek cauldron depicts spectators cheering on a chariot race.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/69716881@N02/24553835868">Egisto Sani/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now, there’s no way we could explain the miracle of TV to the Greeks and how its electronic eye recruits millions of spectators to the modern games by proxy. But visitors to Olympia engaged in a distinct type of spectating.</p>
<p>The ordinary Greek word for someone who observes – “theatês” – connects not only to “theater” but also to “<a href="https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/spectacles-of-truth-in-classical-greek-philosophy-theoria-in-its-cultural-context/">theôria</a>,” a special kind of seeing that requires a journey from home to a place where something wondrous unfolds. Theôria opens a door into the sacred, whether it’s visiting an oracle or participating in a religious cult.</p>
<p>Attending an athletic-religious festival like the Olympics transformed an ordinary spectator, a theatês, into a theôros – a witness observing the sacred, an ambassador reporting home the wonders observed abroad. </p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine TV images from Tokyo achieving similar ends.</p>
<p>No matter how many world records are broken and unprecedented feats accomplished at the 2020 games, the empty arenas will attract no gods or genuine heroes: The Tokyo games are even less enchanted than previous modern games.</p>
<p>But while medal counts will confer fleeting glory on some nations and disappointing shame on others, perhaps a dramatic moment or two might unite athletes and TV viewers in an oceanic feeling of what it means to be “kosmopolitai,” citizens of the world, celebrants of the wonder of what it means to be human – and perhaps, briefly, superhuman as well.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N6a-wHATBVI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ancient Greeks wouldn’t recognize some aspects of the modern Olympics.</span></figcaption>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent Farenga is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at USC.</span></em></p>Athletes and spectators were lured to Olympia by a longing for contact with their compatriots and their gods.Vincent Farenga, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/991712018-07-03T10:34:59Z2018-07-03T10:34:59ZFeasting rituals – and the cooperation they require – are a crucial step toward human civilization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225788/original/file-20180702-116139-1nsb3r3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=136%2C161%2C5100%2C3626&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coming together for a solstice feast in ancient Peru.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Gutierrez</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">The Epic of Gilgamesh</a>” is one of the earliest texts known in the world. It’s the story of a god-king, Gilgamesh, who ruled the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium B.C. Within its lines, the epic hints at how the ancients viewed the origins of their civilization.</p>
<p>Gilgamesh’s antagonist, Enkidu, is described as a wild man, living with the beasts and eating grasses with the gazelles. But he’s seduced by a beautiful temple priestess who then offers him clothing and food, saying “Enkidu, eat bread, it is the staff of life; drink the wine, it is the custom of the land.” And so Enkidu is transformed from a naked wild beast into a “civilized” man living with other people. </p>
<p>Both bread and wine are products of settled society. They represent the power to control nature and create civilization, converting the wild into the tamed, the raw into the cooked – and their transformation cannot be easily done alone. The very act of transforming the wild into the civilized is a social one, requiring many people to work together.</p>
<p>Over the past few decades, archaeological theory has shifted toward the idea that civilization arose in different regions around the world thanks to the evolution of cooperation. Archaeologists have discovered that the consumption of food and drink in ritually prescribed times and places — <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2Fb100538">known technically as feasting</a> — is one of the cornerstones of heightened sociality and cooperation throughout human history. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=azeL_5EAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">My own research</a> in Peru bears this out. The data from my colleagues’ and my work provides yet another detailed case study for theorists to model the evolution of complexity in one of the rare places where a civilization independently developed.</p>
<h2>Signs of cooperation in Peru</h2>
<p>How does complex society originate out of the hunter-gatherer bands and small settled villages that dominated the globe well into the early Holocene around 9,000 years ago? And once such social organizations develop, what kinds of mechanisms sustain these new societies sufficiently to develop into the Uruks of the ancient world?</p>
<p>Six years ago, after 30 years of research in the Titicaca Basin in the high Andes, my colleague Henry Tantaleán and I started a long-term archaeological research program in the valley of Chincha in the south coast of Peru. Thanks to work by previous archaeologists and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1806632115">our own new data</a>, we have been able to piece together a comprehensive prehistory of the valley beginning several millennia ago.</p>
<p>One significant time period is known as Paracas; it lasted from roughly 800 to 200 B.C. This is the time when the first complex societies developed in the region, the origin of civilization in this part of the ancient world. We documented a massive Paracas presence in the valley, ranging from large pyramid structures to modest villages scattered over the landscape.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225789/original/file-20180702-116123-zaz5bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geoglyphs that modified the landscape are still visible, delineating a path to where the sun sets on the summer solstice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Stanish</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across the hyper-arid pampa lands above the valley, the Paracas peoples built linear geoglyphs: designs etched into the desert landscape that they lined with small field stones. We found five sets of lines that all concentrated on the five major Paracas sites at the edge of the pampa. We also found many small structures built between the lines.</p>
<p>Our research indicated that a number of these small structures and many of the lines pointed to the June solstice sunset. Previous work by our team <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136415">and others throughout Peru</a> unequivocally indicates that the pre-Columbian peoples of the Andes used the solstices to mark important events.</p>
<p>We concluded that these sites were the endpoints of ritually significant social events that were timed by the solstices and possibly other astronomical phenomena.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225792/original/file-20180702-116123-15s5x0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excavation of a structure in the Chincha pampa with the walls aligned to the June solstice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Stanish</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Feasting at Paracas</h2>
<p>We chose to intensively study one endpoint site, called Cerro del Gentil, to assess its significance in Paracas culture. The site is a large platform mound with three levels. The base level measures 50 by 120 meters at its maximum. Each level contains a sunken patio measuring around 12 meters on a side.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225793/original/file-20180702-116123-pdnqfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woven cloth bag stuffed with human hair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PNAS</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Excavations by Tantaleán and his team in one of these patios yielded a rich trove of artifacts, including textiles, food stuffs, pottery, decorated gourds, stone objects, reeds, miscellaneous objects and human offerings. We found large pottery vessels that held chicha or maize beer, the equivalent to Enkidu’s wine. There was evidence of food preparation as well, though we did not find a resident population. We found large numbers of pottery serving vessels and evidence of termination rituals involving liquid libations poured into the patio at the conclusion of some elaborate feasts.</p>
<p>Cerro del Gentil, in fact, was a classic archaeological example of a very significant feasting place. No one seemed to live at this well-built location year-round, though there was plenty of evidence that from time to time many people were present to eat, drink and even make human sacrifices together, probably at particular special times of the astronomical calendar. </p>
<p>We used the Cerro del Gentil data to test the following hypotheses about how the earliest cooperative human groups came together: Did people start out small, feasting within their local group and then expanding to incorporate more distant groups? Or, did the earliest successful groups develop contacts with distant autonomous groups around a large region?</p>
<p>Our colleague <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gww5znAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Kelly Knudson</a> from Arizona State University analyzed the strontium ratios in 39 organic objects found in the patios as offerings. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.04.009">ratio of 87Sr/86Sr in any organic object</a>, including humans, tells us from what geographical zone that object is from. We discovered that objects in the patio were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1806632115">from a very broad range of ecozones</a> all around the south central Andes. Some objects came from as far as the Titicaca Basin 600 kilometers away, others from the south coast 200 or so kilometers distant.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225795/original/file-20180702-116152-pzj77p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A small geoglyph in the Chincha pampa with the center line defining the June solstice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Stanish</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feasting rituals build a young civilization</h2>
<p>This case study demonstrates that the earliest successful complex societies in the south coast of Peru circa 400 B.C. involved a wide catchment of people and objects. At least in Paracas society, the optimal strategy of civilization building involved creating widespread alliances early on and then expanding on this model over centuries. We know this because people in Cerro del Gentil incorporated objects and even people in their offerings from distant areas.</p>
<p>In contrast, at a later ceremonial site where the catchment was quite small, all of the objects and human remains were from the immediate environs, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.01.016">evidenced by strontium analysis</a>. The Paracas pattern detected at Cerro del Gentil contrasts with a strategy in which people focused on their local group and then grew incrementally over time. My colleagues and I plan to use these sorts of comparative cases to try to understand which strategies work better in which environmental and social contexts.</p>
<p>The evidence from Cerro del Gentil supports the theory I wrote about in my recent book “<a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/anthropology/social-and-cultural-anthropology/evolution-human-co-operation-ritual-and-social-complexity-stateless-societies">The Evolution of Human Co-operation</a>” – that cooperation in non-state societies is achieved by “ritualizing” the economy. People construct norms, rituals and taboos to organize their economic and political life. Far from being quaint and exotic customs of “primitive peoples,” elaborate rules of behavior, encoded in rich ritual practices, are ingenious means of organizing a society where coercion is absent.</p>
<p>Ritual practices reward cooperators and punish cheaters. They therefore promote sustained group behavior toward common goals and solve what is famously known as the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566020.003.0008">collective action problem</a>” in human social life – how do you get everyone to work together toward something that’s in everyone’s long-term self-interest? Feasting is a key component of this kind of sociality and cooperation. Enkidu’s bread and wine is still relevant 5,000 years later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Stanish receives funding from
National Science Foundation
National Geographic Society
University of South Florida
Institute for Field Research</span></em></p>How did civilization emerge from small groups of hunter-gatherers? Some archaeologists focus on cooperation as the vital ingredient – and find evidence for it in the form of feast-related artifacts.Charles Stanish, Exec. Director, Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment; Professor of Anthropology, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/863702017-12-15T11:28:23Z2017-12-15T11:28:23ZAn archaeological dig in Israel provides clues to how feasting became an important ritual<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199083/original/file-20171213-27588-121rjcv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-family-clinking-glasses-wine-juice-739881853?src=LVxtjsHv9WvkDt3DH5GhOA-1-4">LightField Studios/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This holiday season millions of families will come together to celebrate their respective festivals and engage in myriad rituals. These may include exchanging gifts, singing songs, giving thanks, and most importantly, preparing and consuming the holiday feast.</p>
<p>Archaeological evidence shows that such communally shared meals have long been vital components of human rituals. My colleague <a href="http://archaeology.huji.ac.il/depart/prehistoric/leoreg/leoreg.asp">Leore Grosman</a> and I discovered the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/35/15362.abstract?sid=46eefb6c-5163-4b34-a748-228c9660abc5">earliest evidence of a ritual feast</a> at a 12,000-year-old archaeological site in northern Israel and learned how feasts came to be integral components of modern-day ritual practice. </p>
<h2>First, what are rituals?</h2>
<p>Rituals involve meaningful, often repeated actions. In modern-day practices they are expressed through rites such as the hooding of a doctoral student, birthdays, weddings or even sipping wine at Holy Communion or lighting Hanukkah candles. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199089/original/file-20171213-27597-1763rgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pompeii family feast painting, Naples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APompeii_family_feast_painting_Naples.jpg">Unknown painter before 79 AD, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ritual practice may have emerged along with other early modern human behaviors more than 100,000 years ago. However, proving this with material evidence is a challenge. For example, researchers have found that both Neanderthals and early modern humans <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves/">buried their dead</a>, but scholars weren’t certain whether this was for spiritual or symbolic reasons and not for something more mundane like maintaining site hygiene. Likewise, the discovery of 100,000-year-old symbolic artifacts like <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100362">pierced shell ornaments</a> and <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/219">decorated chunks of red ochre</a> in caves in South Africa, was not sufficient to prove that they were part of any ritual activities. </p>
<p>It was only when archaeologists found these artifacts, placed in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zUbK0CRChHoC&dq=paul+pettit+upper+burial&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y">graves going back 40,000-20,000 years</a>, that it was confirmed they were part of ritual practice. </p>
<h2>The first feasts</h2>
<p>We had a similar experience during our research. When Leore Grosman and I first embarked on the excavations at Hilazon Tachtit in the late 1990s, we were only hoping to document the activities of the last hunter-gatherers in Israel, at what appeared to be a small campsite. It was only over several seasons of excavation that it slowly became clear to us that this was not a site where people had lived. Rather it was a site for rituals.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199249/original/file-20171214-27562-ax6zi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hilazon Tachtit cave interior.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naftali Hilger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No houses, fireplaces or cooking areas were recovered. Instead the cave yielded the skeletal remains of at least 28 individuals interred in three pits and two small structures. </p>
<p>One of these structures contained the complete skeleton of an older woman, who we <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2008/11/ancient-grave-may-have-belonged-shaman">interpreted as a shaman</a> based on her special treatment at death. Her grave stood apart due to its fine construction – the walls were plastered with clay and inset with flat stone slabs. Even more remarkable was the eclectic array of animal body parts buried alongside of her. The pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of an eagle, the skulls of two martens and many other unusual body parts surrounded her skeleton. </p>
<p>The butchered remnants of more than 90 tortoises buried in the grave and the leftovers of at least three wild cattle deposited in a second adjacent depression excavated in the cave floor represent the remains of a funeral feast. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199251/original/file-20171214-27555-167g7d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hilazon Tachtit cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naftali Hilger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The outstanding preservation of the grave enabled us to detect multiple phases of a <a href="https://www.livescience.com/55295-female-shaman-burial-reconstructed.html">ritual performance</a> that included the consumption of the feast, the burial of the woman, and the filling of the grave in several stages, including the intentional deposition of garbage from the feast. </p>
<h2>Feasting at the beginning of agriculture</h2>
<p>Archaeologists have found other sites that show evidence of ritual feasting. Many of these date to the time when humans were beginning to farm. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199085/original/file-20171213-27555-1txywo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Site of Göbekli Tepe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AG%C3%B6bekli_Tepe%2C_Urfa.jpg">Teomancimit (Own work) , via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most striking is the site of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/">Göbekli Tepe</a> in southeastern Turkey, dating slightly later than Hilazon Tachtit. It includes multiple large structures adorned with benches and giant stone slab carved with exquisite animal depictions in relief dating to <a href="https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/how-old-ist-it-dating-gobekli-tepe/">11-12,000 years ago</a>. Perhaps, these were very early communal buildings. The archaeologists who excavated Göbekli Tepe argue that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003598X00047840">massive quantities of animal bones</a> associated with the structures represent the remains of feasts. </p>
<p>Twelve thousand years ago humans were still hunter-gatherers, subsisting entirely on wild foods. Nevertheless, these people differed from those who went before – they were sitting on the brink of the transition to agriculture, one of the most significant economic, social and ideological transformations in human history. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116301780">Sickle blades</a> and grinding stones used to harvest and process cereal grains are found at Hilazon Tachtit and other contemporary archaeological sites. These findings indicate that these ritual feasts started around the same time that people adopted agriculture. When people began to rely more heavily on wild cereals like wheat and barley, they became increasingly tethered to landscapes that were ever more crowded and began to <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/when-did-humans-settle-down-house-mouse-may-have-answer">settle into more permanent communities</a>. In other words, feasting became a part of their life, once they moved away from nomadic life.</p>
<h2>Rituals that bind</h2>
<p>These feasts had an important role to play. Adapting to village life after hundreds of millennia on the move was no simple act. Research on modern hunter-gatherer societies shows that <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1989.91.3.02a00110/abstract">closer contact between neighbors dramatically increased social tensions.</a> New solutions to avoid and repair conflict were critical. </p>
<p>The simultaneous appearance of feasting, communal structures and specialized ritual sites suggest that humans were seeking to solve this problem by engaging the community in ritual practice. </p>
<p>One of the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416596900124">central functions of ritual in these communities</a> was to provide a kind of social glue that bound community members by promoting social cohesion and solidarity. Feasts generate loyalty and commitment to the community’s success. Sharing food is intimate and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/02/02/512998465/why-eating-the-same-food-increases-peoples-trust-and-cooperation">it builds trust</a>.</p>
<p>Communal rituals would have provided a shared sense of identity at a time when social circles were increasing in scale and permanence. They reinforced new ideologies that emerged out of a dramatic reorganization of economic and social life. </p>
<h2>Role of feasts today</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199090/original/file-20171213-27597-tk1qmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">What’s the role of feasting today?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-thanksgiving-day-autumn-feast-family-737439070?src=cAJNHiZ6AxqK1BctdugBjg-1-44">Yuganov Konstantin</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Feasting plays the same essential role today. Like the earliest feasts, our holiday celebrations are replete with actions that are repeated year after year. </p>
<p>The holiday feast today builds family traditions. By cooking and sharing food together, telling stories of past holidays and exchanging intergenerational wisdom, holiday rituals bond extended families and give them a shared identity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Munro receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Ritual feasting emerged around the time humans were beginning to farm. It came to play an important role in societal bonding, much as it does today.Natalie Munro, Professor, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.