The control of microbes in food has been as important to human societies as the domestication of plants and animals. The direct or indirect management of microbes has been critical to food safety, ensuring nutrient availability, and developing desired sensory characteristics in food. Fermentation is more universal than is agriculture inasmuch as it is practiced by agricultural societies, pastoralists, and hunter-gatherers. In addition, fermentation likely predates agriculture, potentially by hundreds of thousands of years. However, we lack a general approach to understanding of (a) when and why technologies associated with fermentation emerged and (b) how those technologies and the microbes associated with them diverged once they emerged. Here we offer a framework for the study of the diversification of fermented foods in and among human societies. In developing this framework, we draw heavily from research on language and more generally cultural diversification.

中文翻译：

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迈向全球发酵食品生态

对人类社会而言，控制食物中的微生物与驯化植物和动物一样重要。微生物的直接或间接管理对于食品安全、确保营养供应和在食品中形成所需的感官特征至关重要。发酵比农业更普遍，因为它被农业社会、牧民和狩猎采集者所采用。此外，发酵可能早于农业，可能早几十万年。然而，我们缺乏理解（a）与发酵相关的技术出现的时间和原因以及（b）的一般方法) 这些技术和与之相关的微生物在出现后是如何分化的。在这里，我们提供了一个框架，用于研究人类社会中和人类社会之间发酵食品的多样化。在开发这个框架时，我们大量借鉴了对语言和更普遍的文化多样化的研究。