Apologies if this comes across a bit ignorant as it’s just something I was curious about, what would’ve been the first ever forms of preserving food say from hunter gatherers and what other breakthroughs followed along with being able to preserve, how much of a significant impact did any of these discoveries at the time have if any?
While waiting, you may enjoy this thread on the refrigeration of food:
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mxpath/was_ice_a_novelty_before_the_invention_of/ specifically the answer by /u/Bentresh
As well as
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9gobb8/what_methods_of_preserving_food_crops_were/
specifically the answer by /u/machipongo