Is sharing food such an everyday, unremarkable occurrence? In fact, the human tendency to sit together peacefully over food is actually rather an extraordinary phenomenon, and one which many species find impossible. It is also a pheonomenon with far-reaching consequences for the global environment and human social evolution. So how did this strange and powerful behaviour come about? In Feast, Martin Jones uses the latest archaeological methods to illuminate how humans came to share food in the first place and how the human meal has developed since then. From the earliest evidence of human consumption around half a million years ago to the era of the TV dinner and the drive-through diner, this fascinating account unfolds the history of the human meal and its huge impact both on human society and the ecology of the planet.

马丁•琼斯（Martin Jones），英国生物考古学领军人物，英国剑桥大学考古学系、乔治•皮特-里弗斯实验室(George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory)、格林•丹尼尔实验室（Glyn Daniel Laboratory）教授，曾担任剑桥大学考古系主任、英国古分子生物学研究会主席及科学考古战略委员会主席等职；“古代生物分子研究首创计划”主持人，开创了将多种科技方法应用于古代食物遗存研究的先例。主要研究领域为史前时期的农业交流、人类分享食物的起源、早期作物分子生物考古、生态学理论与考古学方法、欧洲史前时代晚期至历史时期前段的农业等。著有《末日前的英格兰》（England Before Domesday，1986），《分子的搜寻：考古学与古代DNA的探索》（The Molecule Hunt: Archaeology and the Search for Ancient DNA，2001）等。