Research
Investigations into what humanity has eaten, and how we know.
The atlas holds thousands of reconstructed moments. Here the editors take one question at a time and examine it at length: what the evidence shows, how strong it is, and what remains uncertain. Every piece is written by one editor and checked by another, under our Editorial Standards.
Latest investigation
The First Farmers: How Agriculture Changed Human Diets
Farming was invented independently in several parts of the world, and in each the new crops took thousands of years to become what people mainly ate. When they did, diets narrowed to a few starchy staples, more children were born, and skeletons record more tooth decay, more disease and shorter adults.
Collections
- The Origins of Cooking
When people began to cook, and how the evidence separates burning, fire, hearths and cooked food across a million years.
- Food in the Paleolithic
How early humans found, prepared, shared, and transformed food across millions of years of changing environments.
How we work
- Editorial Team — who writes and checks the research
- Editorial Standards — sources, evidence labels, AI, corrections
- Research Updates — dated changes and corrections