Environmental manipulation for edible insect procurement: a historical perspective

Much research on prehistoric diets focused on the procurement of meat, i.e. hunting of large animals. This has been considered to be an important socio-cultural aspect in antiquity. McGrew [1] warns for a skewed picture of early diets. Regarding animal protein, archaeological evidence throughout the world points to a broad diet that included fish, birds, lizards, rodents, rabbits, turtles, crabs, molluscs, and shellfish [2]. Coprolite analyses provide direct evidence also of the consumption of insects e.g. termites and predaceous diving beetles by early American Indians (up to 9,500 B.P.) and ants, dung beetle larvae, and caterpillars in Mexico (> 5,400 B.P.) [[3] and references therein, see also [4]].For an understanding of prehistoric life, archaeologists increasingly consult anthropological studies of traditional forager societies today, such as the !Kun-San of the Kalahari and Australian Aborigines, which are believed to resemble such life most closely [2,5]. It is increasingly acknowledged that studies on the ecological anthropology of these peoples have usually wrongfully ignored the use of insects as food. The !Kun-San consume termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and ants [6]. Australian Aborigines consume e.g. termites, grasshoppers, moths, caterpillars, beetle larvae, wasp larvae, and ant brood [7-9]. Their practice of entomophagy has decreased though over the past 200 years through western influence [10].Some other studies incorporating insect use were conducted in the Amazon Basin [11-13]. The indigenous groups under investigation practice forms of cultivation and horticulture in combination with hunting and gathering. Such combinations in subsistence have been practiced throughout history [2]. These records indicate intensive use of insects as food source. Based on such archaeological and ethnographic records, Sutton [4] stresses that "... we must expect [original italics] the use of insects in antiquity and so we must subject insect remains to the same