What Did Ancient People Actually Eat?

Forget the giant steaks. For most of history, people ate grain, grain, and more grain. But they also ate roasted dormice, sun-rotted fish sauce, and 4,000-year-old noodles. In this video we travel from Stone Age campfires to Roman street-food bars to find out what ancient people really ate. Along the way: why farming wrecked people's teeth, why pyramid builders were paid in beer, what Ötzi the Iceman ate before he died, and whether people really drank beer because the water was dirty. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:40 Hunter-gatherers: it wasn't all meat 1:24 How cooking changed everything 1:45 Farming, bread & bad teeth 2:28 Milk & cheese 2:42 Ancient Egypt: bread and beer 3:24 The oldest recipes on Earth 3:39 Roman street food 4:18 A normal Roman day of eating 4:43 Crazy Roman feasts 5:02 Garum: Rome's fish sauce 5:27 Pepper & spices 5:44 Greeks & Spartan black soup 6:16 Salt 6:31 Ötzi the Iceman's last meal 7:03 China, the Maya & the Andes 7:32 Did they really drink beer instead of water? 7:48 So what did they actually eat? 📚 Sources & further reading Maixner, F. et al. (2018). "The Iceman's Last Meal Consisted of Fat, Wild Meat, and Cereals." Current Biology. Lu, H. et al. (2005). "Millet noodles in Late Neolithic China." Nature. Salque, M. et al. (2013). "Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium BC in northern Europe." Nature. Evershed, R. et al. (2022). "Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe." Nature. Mercader, J. (2009). "Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age." Science. Wrangham, R. (2009). Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books. Larsen, C. S. (1995). "Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture." Annual Review of Anthropology. Molleson, T. (1994). "The Eloquent Bones of Abu Hureyra." Scientific American. Bottéro, J. (2004). The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. University of Chicago Press. Pompeii Archaeological Park (2020). Excavation of the Thermopolium of Regio V. Curtis, R. I. (1991). Garum and Salsamenta: Production and Commerce in Materia Medica. Brill. Varro, On Agriculture 3.15 (dormice in jars); Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 12 (Spartan black broth). Hurst, W. J. et al. (2002). "Cacao usage by the earliest Maya civilization." Nature. 🔔 Subscribe for more videos about how ancient people really lived. #AncientHistory #History #Archaeology what did ancient people eat, ancient food, ancient diet, history of food, ancient history, food history, paleo diet, hunter gatherers, ancient rome food, roman food, garum, ancient egypt food, otzi the iceman, iceman last meal, mesopotamian recipes, oldest recipe, spartan black soup, ancient greece food, history explained, animated history, archaeology, ancient people, how people lived, history documentary