ichingcarpenter
18th September 2018, 17:03
New evidence supports the hypothesis that beer may have been motivation to cultivate cereals
Stanford University archaeologists are turning the history of beer on its head.
A research team led by Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology at Stanford, has found evidence of the earliest brewmasters to date, a finding that might stir an old debate: What came first, beer or bread?
In a cave in what is now Israel, the team found beer-brewing innovations that they believe predate the early appearance of cultivated cereals in the Near East by several millennia. Their findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, support a hypothesis proposed by archaeologists more than 60 years ago: Beer may have been a motivating factor for the original domestication of cereals in some areas.
'Oldest record of man-made alcohol'
Evidence suggests that thousands of years ago, the Natufian people, a group of hunter-gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean, were quite the beer connoisseurs.
Liu and her research team analyzed residues from 13,000-year-old stone mortars found in the Raqefet Cave, a Natufian graveyard site located near what is now Haifa, Israel, and discovered evidence of an extensive beer-brewing operation.
"This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world," Liu said.
The researchers believe that the Natufians brewed beer for ritual feasts that venerated the dead.
"This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture," Liu said about their findings.
In her lab analysis, Liu said she was surprised to discover evidence of beer brewing in the residue samples they gathered.
"We did not set out to find alcohol in the stone mortars, but just wanted to investigate what plant foods people may have consumed because very little data was available in the archaeological record," said Liu, who is the Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor in Chinese Archaeology at Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.
As Liu notes in the paper, the earliest bread remains to date were recently recovered from the Natufian site in east Jordan. Those could be from 11,600 to 14,600 years old. The beer finding she reports here could be from 11,700 to 13,700 years old.
more: https://m.phys.org/news/2018-09-evidence-hypothesis-beer-cultivate-cereals.html
Notice the time period? Right around the time of Gobekli Tepe
Stanford University archaeologists are turning the history of beer on its head.
A research team led by Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology at Stanford, has found evidence of the earliest brewmasters to date, a finding that might stir an old debate: What came first, beer or bread?
In a cave in what is now Israel, the team found beer-brewing innovations that they believe predate the early appearance of cultivated cereals in the Near East by several millennia. Their findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, support a hypothesis proposed by archaeologists more than 60 years ago: Beer may have been a motivating factor for the original domestication of cereals in some areas.
'Oldest record of man-made alcohol'
Evidence suggests that thousands of years ago, the Natufian people, a group of hunter-gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean, were quite the beer connoisseurs.
Liu and her research team analyzed residues from 13,000-year-old stone mortars found in the Raqefet Cave, a Natufian graveyard site located near what is now Haifa, Israel, and discovered evidence of an extensive beer-brewing operation.
"This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world," Liu said.
The researchers believe that the Natufians brewed beer for ritual feasts that venerated the dead.
"This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture," Liu said about their findings.
In her lab analysis, Liu said she was surprised to discover evidence of beer brewing in the residue samples they gathered.
"We did not set out to find alcohol in the stone mortars, but just wanted to investigate what plant foods people may have consumed because very little data was available in the archaeological record," said Liu, who is the Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor in Chinese Archaeology at Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.
As Liu notes in the paper, the earliest bread remains to date were recently recovered from the Natufian site in east Jordan. Those could be from 11,600 to 14,600 years old. The beer finding she reports here could be from 11,700 to 13,700 years old.
more: https://m.phys.org/news/2018-09-evidence-hypothesis-beer-cultivate-cereals.html
Notice the time period? Right around the time of Gobekli Tepe