The earliest contact of man with insects was utilitarian and there is little doubt that he was initially attracted by their potentialities as food. This early development from Pithecanthropus to the primitive tribes inhabiting the tropics today has already been discussed. Our scanty knowledge of these beginnings of entomophagy is largely derived from analogies and circumstantial evidence. Yet in the oldest civilizations we find mention of the consumption of various insects and their products, mainly locusts and honey. The beginnings of honey-hunting and of primitive bee-keeping will be discussed later. Most of the early documents concern civilized peoples with a high agricultural standard. In such cases they are merely consumed as dainties or perhaps occasionally during famines. Where large-scale eating of insects is noted, it is described as a curiosity of barbaric tribes.