This book offers a global perspective on the role food has played in shaping human societies and identities.

Christine A. Hastorf is known for her contributions to palaeoethnobotany, agriculture, meaning and the everyday, food studies, political economy, and ritual in middle-range societies of the Andean region of South America. She has written and edited many articles and books, and has completed fieldwork in Mexico, California, New Mexico, Italy, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Turkey and England. She oversees an archaeobotanical laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and directs an archaeological project in Bolivia. At the 2012 Society for American Archaeology meetings, she was awarded the Fryxell Award for Excellence in the Botanical Sciences in Archaeology.

1. Introduction: the social life of food; Part I. Laying the Groundwork: 2. Framing food investigation; 3. The practices of a meal in society; Part II. Current Food Studies in Archaeology: 4. The archaeological study of food activities; 5. Food economics; 6. Food politics: power and status; Part III. Food and Identity: The Potentials of Food Archaeology: 7. Food in the construction of group identity; 8. The creation of personal identity: food, body and personhood; 9. Food creates society.