From the design to validation of health claims. What about claims and food be...
Mass communication regarding the evolution of diet and health from Atapuerca to the present.
1. COMMUNICATING FOOD FOR HEALTH
BENEFITS
NEW FOOD TRENDS AND MEANINGS
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AND FOOD COMMUNICATION
INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATION
8th – 9th November, 2012
TARRAGONA
Communication about the evolution of
diet and health from Atapuerca to the
present
By Cinta S. Bellmunt, head of Communication at the IPHES
www.iphes.cat
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institution
Presentation
IPHES: Institut Català de Paleoecologia
Humana i Evolució Social (Catalan
Institute of Human Paleoecology and
Social Evolution)
• Located at the Sescelades campus of the
Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona
• It is one of the three best research
centres in the world investigating human
evolution
• Directed by archaeologist Eudald
Carbonell, there are some sixty people
working. Most are dedicated to research.
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institution
• We have a department of
socialization: didactical
activities for the public in
general, we organize
exhibitions, congresses,
open days, television
series, books, etc.
• Communication about
human evolution: 5 blogs,
several channels on
Facebook, Twitter and
Youtube. We are followed
by over 35,000 people.
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• A variety of news items: archaeological discoveries, excavations,
publications in impact journals, conferences, books…
• Some deal with diet and health and are based on the research that
is carried out at the IPHES. All of the inferences made come from
the empirical records
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Why are we interested in food?
'We are beings that eat, transform, recycle and
regulate energy through food”, in the words
of archaeologist Eudald Carbonell.
“What we eat defines us, it explains us and
conditions our life”.
“Moreover, how human beings have eaten
throughout history is closely linked to our
evolution as a species”.
Knowing about these matters can help us to
improve our present and foresee a more
human future
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institution
Topics related with food
• What have we eaten throughout
our evolution from eating insects to
today? The importance of the
introduction of meat: essential for
the development of the brain.
• The transformation of a basically
vegetarian diet to another strongly
meat-based diet is the main cause
that led to the individualization of
the genus Homo compared to
Australopithecus.
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institution
Topics related with food
• This same cause enabled our ancestors to go beyond the tropics of Africa,
where there were abundant vegetable resources to reach the temperate
zones of Eurasia, with its seasonal variations.
• But, access to meat was never easy and hyenas were tough competition
often taking the prize.
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institution
Topics related with food
Changes to human biology:
bipedalism
Our hands became free, our visibility
increased …
We extended the possibilities of
obtaining resources
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institution
Topics related with food
• Climatic crises
• Adaptation to the environment
• Making use of resources
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How we eat
• Laterality, the preferential use of the
right hand for the different activities
related with food
• The evolution of technology:
The use of tools to process food,
preserve food, how they facilitate
obtaining energy freeing up time to do
other things.
• The discovery of fire, the socialization
of meals. Eating around the fire
increases sociability, changes of
organization, socialization.
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institution
How we eat
• The early agricultural and livestock
farmers (creation of surpluses and
sedentarism). We were hunter-
gatherers
• These major changes have led to
evolutionary changes.
• It is not the same to eat alone, in a
group, standing, sitting, in a hurry, or
calmly; or eating fruit, vegetables,
insects or the meat of macromammals
or fish.
• All of this defines our social nature .
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The methodology of
how we can come to
these conclusions
• cut marks in stone tools
• analysis of the remains found
in fireplaces
• substances found on teeth
• animal and human bones
(cannibalism in Atapuerca)
found at excavations, etc.
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institution
NEWS - EXAMPLES
• “A new study confirms that 500,000 years ago the Atapuerca hominids were
right-handed”
• “Conference about food resources Atapuerca hominids”
• “Conference on Food and Human Evolution”
• “800,000 years ago gastronomic cannibalism was common practice for Homo
antecessor in Atapuerca”
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institution
NEWS - EXAMPLES
• “7,000 faunal remains of fossils from Atapuerca analysed to understand the use
of animals by hominids”
• “The fossilized teeth of horses, key to understanding Darwin's natural selection
and climate change”
• “Maltravieso Neanderthals were the first hominids who ate hyenas”
• “New cannibalism hypothesis relates Atapuerca with the defence and extension
of a territory rich in resources”
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institution
The idea of conscious
eating
• Conscious eating is not what
you find in your surroundings,
rather it is how you organize
your environment and a
culture of the environment, to
be able to establish a food
culture and a psychological
and social education so that
food becomes the subject of
oral communication and
structuring of human
relations.
16. COMMUNICATING FOOD FOR HEALTH
BENEFITS
NEW FOOD TRENDS AND MEANINGS
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AND FOOD COMMUNICATION
INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATION
8th – 9th November, 2012
TARRAGONA
Communication about the evolution of
diet and health from Atapuerca to the
present
By Cinta S. Bellmunt, head of Communication at the IPHES
www.iphes.cat
