476 food and diet: Asia and the Pacific exploits of some soldiers who had enjoyed too much wine, and in the seventh century b.c.e numerous inhabitants of the city of Assur invested in wine imports, undoubtedly destined for private consumption Wine was best served alongside meat, the two essential components of a festive banquet fit for kings and gods Most common was the meat of domesticated animals Beef, mutton, and poultry (from ducks and geese, for the chicken arrived in Mesopotamia from India only in the first millennium b.c.e.) were prepared in a variety of styles, including grilled, roasted, steamed, cooked in water, or cooked inside a pie or as part of a soup Pork was less common, although no taboo prevented its consumption Recipes for various meat dishes survive in a group of texts from the city of Larsa, dating to the early second millennium b.c.e These oldest-known recipes are extremely elaborate and give considerable insight into the haute cuisine of Babylonia, a truly international cuisine that incorporated recipes that reflected Assyrian and Elamite cooking styles While not all ingredients, especially the many spices and herbs, can be identified with certainty, the sheer amount of effort invested in the preparation of these dishes illustrates an appreciation for rich culinary delights As such, they counterbalance descriptions of the bland basic diet of ordinary people, who ate meat only on rare occasions, usually during festivals Fish, however, was far more common on the menu Fish was widely available in the rivers and, according to Greek historian Herodotus, the exclusive diet of the inhabitants of the swamps in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, who are said to have eaten cakes made from ground-up fish instead of bread The Near Eastern diet also included items that seem alien, such as locusts, which were either grilled on spits or ground up and processed into cakes However, other foodstuffs that seem very ordinary were highly unusual in the ancient Near East Eggs, for example, were almost exclusively reserved for the plates of kings and gods When the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 b.c.e.) stated in an inscription that he served, among a wealth of gastronomic highlights, 10,000 eggs at the inauguration feast of his new palace in Kalchu, many of his guests would have eaten these treats for the first time in their lives ASIA AND THE PACIFIC BY CONSTANCE A COOK The production of food in ancient Asia and the Pacific went through the same uneven transition from hunting and gathering to farming seen in the rest of the world Some regions were resistant to this change, while in others cultivation techniques seemed to spread rapidly Archaeology reveals some correlation between the production and use of pottery and the rise of agricultural and sedentary communities These communities tended also to develop ranked social patterns and reveal more material evidence for food storage and the use of food and beverages in ritual contexts The earliest hunter-gatherer communities occupied southern China (south of the Yangtze River) and upland Southeast Asia (modern-day Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam), possibly after having migrated from the west over one million years ago They hunted wild pigs, deer, gaur, rhinoceros, stegodon (a type of elephant), bovids (antelope, oxen, sheep, and goats), monkeys, muntjacs (a type of deer), tapir, hyena, pandas, squirrels, rodents, bats, birds, fish, mollusks, shellfish, and other fauna They gathered wild grains, fruits, nuts, yams, taro, legumes and other flora The food sources available naturally varied according to environment Mainland Asians had access to large animals and cereals, whereas those on some of the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific did not Along seacoasts and rivers, those who lived in the mangrove swamps in southern Thailand foraged for marine and river estuarine fauna In highland areas or plains there is evidence that some early peoples began small-scale cultivation of tubers Foraging in rainforests and forest horticulture were likely sources of food in Southeast Asia and island Southeast Asia Wild rice was also available throughout much of south China and mainland Southeast Asia The transition to farming and a more sedentary lifestyle may have begun 14,000 years ago during the Paleolithic Era, although the large-scale adoption of agriculture and animal husbandry is linked to the Neolithic Revolution and occurred in different regions at different times—and some places, such as Australia, island Southeast Asia, and north and northwestern Asia not at all or not until the historical period Because of changes in the climate, with northern areas becoming noticeably warmer, a variety of farming styles and dietary habits developed Rice was cultivated in wetland paddies beginning in the middle Yangtze River basin possibly as early as 12,000 years ago From there it spread southward and eventually northward Early peoples also cultivated yams, adzuki beans, melons, fruits, and vegetables in addition to hunting The 8,000year-old site of Jiahu in Henan Province in the Huai River valley shows that the people cultivated first japonica and then indica rice as well as other plants They also had access to buffalo, alligator, fish, and other animals In the 7,000-yearold site of Hemudu (Yuyao, Zhejiang, near the Pacific coast), where intensive rice farming occurred, archeologists have found evidence of domesticated pigs, water buffaloes, and dogs They hunted deer, muntjac, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger, bear, and birds As coastal dwellers, they speared fish, whales, and sharks They also ate acorns, water chestnuts, wild jubjubes (a Chinese date), water lily, gourds, and beans The variable climate in the north encouraged people around the Yangtze River and its tributaries to cultivate millet in dryland fields in the Yellow River basin, especially in Hebei and Henan They cultivated foxtail and broomcorn millets and eventually soybeans, sorghum, wheat, barley, vegetables, melons, fruit, and hemp By 6000 b.c.e dryland farming communities were well established and extended as