Food preservation is as old as humankind, and actually predates us. Animals are known to preserve food in a crude fashion, from dogs burying bones to squirrels stashing away nuts and acorns for later consumption. Strictly speaking, that is not really food preservation but rather food stockpiling, but the two are extensively connected.
Our hunter/gatherer ancestors began to preserve food with the discovery and taming of fire. The mere act of cooking meat has a preservative effect, especially when the meat is cooked to near dryness. Drying food in the sun was also certainly practiced in warmer climates, and freezing food for later use was and still is done by nomads in the Arctic regions.
With the advent of agriculture the need for preservation of food on a large scale became essential to provide sustenance during times of crop failure, especially for grain crops. Grains are fairly easy to preserve since they are dry, so keeping them dry and vermin out of them are the keys. It is thought that the cat became domesticated around this time.
This series will examine various food preservation methods from the ancient to the modern, including an extensive installment on chemical preservatives. Some of these have gotten bad press undeservedly, and some are not as safe as commonly thought.