This article tests the assumption that foragers are more likely to experience regular and severe food shortages than sedentary agriculturalists. The results indicate that there is no statistical difference in the quantity of available food or the frequency or extent of food shortages between preindustrial foragers, recent foragers, and agriculturalists.

The present research examines the consumption, treatment, and disposal of the human placenta in a sample of 179 societies. The findings reveal differences between placental mammals and humans as maternal placentophagy, the consumption of the placenta, is rare. Treatment and disposal of the placenta is variable but ubiquitous cross-culturally.