Why humans feel the need to feast together

Why humans feel the need to feast together Getty Images For thousands of years, humans have come together in small groups to feast on food. No one is certain when humans or human ancestors first learned to cook – estimates vary wildly, with the oldest suggested date being 1.8 million years ago – but when someone has gone to the trouble of hunting or gathering food, putting together a fire, and then cooking over it, it implies that they may have a social group to help them with the many stages of this process. Getty Images Apart from humans, only a few species of apes such as bonobos also gather together to eat communally And once you are all seated around a fire, a warm, bright beacon in the darkness, you may find yourself staying awake later, speculates Robin Dunbar, a biological anthropologist at the University of Oxford in the UK. Whatever the details of its origins, eating meals together is linked to higher wellbeing, Dunbar found in a 2017 study that asked people living in the UK how often they ate meals with others. Getty Images Eating meals together has been linked to higher levels of wellbeing, studies say "If you ask them, people will say they enjoy having shared meals with friends and loved ones.