Food and the status quest : an interdisciplinary perspective / edited by Polly Wiessner and Wulf Schiefenhövel.

Text in English.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Food, status, culture, and nature / Polly Weissner -- The ethological bases of status hierarchies / Barbara Hold-Cavell -- The evolution of nurturant dominance / Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt -- Dominance status, food sharing, and reproductive success in chimpanzees / William C. McGrew -- Food sharing and status in unprovisioned bonobos / Gottfried Hohmann and Barbara Fruth -- Systems of power : the function and evolution of social status / Karl Grammer -- Feasts and commensal politics in the political economy : food, power, and status in prehistoric Europe / Michael Dietler -- Feasting in prehistoric and traditional societies / Brian Hayden -- Food production and social status as documented in proto-cuneiform texts / Peter Damerow -- Leveling the hunter : constraints on the status quests in foraging societies / Polly Wiessner -- Food and the status quest in five African cultures / Igor de Garine -- Food, competition, and the status of food in New Guinea / Pierre Lemonnier -- Of harvests and hierarchies : securing staple food and social position in the Trobriand Islands / Wulf Schiefenhövel and Ingrid Bell-Krannhals -- Food and household status in Nepal / Catherine Panter-Brick -- Nutritional security and the status quest in developing countries / Rainer Gross and Günter Dresrüsse.

"The use of food to negotiate status is found in all human societies. Here, for the first time, a single book brings together contributions from different disciplines to investigate, from ethological and anthropological perspectives, behaviour that appears to have biological roots such as the tendency to seek status through the medium of food. It explores the limits that our biological heritage places on cultural expressions of such behaviour, as well as the multiplicity of ways in which biologically based tendencies can be transformed by culture. Finally, it addresses the impact of status-seeking on nutritional programmes in developing countries"--Jacket.