### p54 excess surplus leads to ritual sacrifice > In many pre-state societies abundant surplus is often burned off ceremonially and kinship relations are expanded to include wider social interactions. Under the stressful conditions of food shortages, however, ceremonial activity is often limited, kinship relations are contracted, and food sharing is reduced - [[Domestic Storage Behavior in Mesoamerica#p54 excess surplus leads to ritual sacrifice|View in Vault]] THAT's why they sacrifice it to the gods. They can't store it! There's not enough space or they can't carry it. Ugh it's so obvious in retrospect. - [I] Inspiration for [[(SS) Burnt Offerings]] ## But it’s not the only reason [Tweet](https://twitter.com/i/status/1418610741872058374) by [@EleanorKonik](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik) on [[July 23rd, 2021]]: - I have a theory about why we don't sacrifice what we don't eat, inspired by an article I read recently researching food preservation: - [Food Preservation](https://newsletter.eleanorkonik.com/food-preservation/) - The tl;dr is that sacrifice was (sometimes) an important way to keep excess food from rotting and attracting scavengers. [twitter.com/JoelBaden/stat…](https://twitter.com/JoelBaden/status/1418538724791668739) - I don't have a good sense yet whether my theory is GOOD — I'm planning to do a longer deep dive analysis soon — but I think at least some time this makes intuitive sense, particularly for nomadic cultures. Also, sacrifice is often associated with feasts & celebrations. - So sometimes, in some cultures (I don't know a ton about ancient Judaism specifically, I'm more of a generalist) what will wind up happening is that there will be a grand event where an animal is dedicated, a small portion sacrificed, and the rest eaten by a big gathering. - My understanding is that a lot of early pastoralists would eat beef only during these special times, and that they were basically saved exclusively for these big celebratory sacrificial feasts when large groups gathered together, as a flashy display of wealth. - So it's definitely not JUST about food preservation / worry about rotting food from excess, but I think it might play a part 🤔 - Curious if anyone else has any further resources on this topic. It's kind of hard to google / search for & I imagine many scholars are just speculating. - Addendum: lots of cultural habits don't have reasons, ritual sacrifice doesn't always have (or need) a reason beyond "we treat our god as the senior member of our household, who gets to eat first" — it's just the more structural/underlying implications interest me a lot :D