The production and consumption of food can tell us much about how different cultures constructed and perceived their environment. This collection explores the shifting social contexts of food in prehistory by examining the interrelationships of food, biology, and ecology. Using case studies from the rainforest groups of South America to peoples of the desert fringes of Asia to farmers in the Highlands of New Guinea, the international contributors investigate the different roles food plays in culture: as an object of consumption, a vital part of the landscape, an influence on the development of agriculture and culinary methods, and an agent of socioeconomic change. With an impressive wealth of archaeological, genetic, botanical and linguistic evidence, this book tells the complex and fascinating story of the relationship between humans and their food.