They are pretty old, though. I remember feeling awe and almost indescribable trepidation looking at a tiny ancient Egyptian spoon, a museum exhibit. Several thousand years old.

Forks, by contrast... Those are what, several hundred years old, as far as the invention goes?

To correct myself: in some cultures spoons and bowls go far back, but not all. In others, some sort of a bread is used to wrap food and eat from. I am not sure how they deal with soups, though. As an aside, I have read in a culinary anthropology book that our modern souls that are pretty liquid are quite modern and pureed soups, decidedly British - more traditional peasant soups were more solid, like stews or oot-au-feu. I really like Teff, the Ethiopian sour spongy "bread" used to hold all foods. "Bread" in quotation marks because Teff is a grass and not a grain.