Liz Pearson Mann gave a talk entitled "Eat Like Your Ancestors: the archaeology of food and the farmed landscape and the future of food". The talk was attended by 38 people in person and 15 via Zoom.
Liz Pearson Mann is an archaeologist who has spent many years producing data on the lives of farmers and the food they’ve produced from the ground beneath their feet. She posed the question, “How should we feed ourselves in the future?” This is a question we’re increasingly compelled to answer. Media headlines are awash with news about the damaging effects of the food we eat; of scientific data on the worst excesses of modern industrialised farming. Yet, archaeologists unearth food and farm waste from the ground every day that show us a different story – of long-lived local food cultures which have developed over hundreds, and even thousands of years in sympathy with the local landscape.
Liz took us on a journey around the English West Midlands - a diverse landscape with a rich food history to find out why the past is relevant for the future of food. The talk stimulated much debate at the end of the meeting.
