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How Beer Gave Us Civilization
Hugh Pickens writes "Jeffrey P. Khan writes in the NY Times about how recent anthropological research suggests that human's angst of anxiety and depression ultimately results from our transformation, over tens of thousands of years, from biologically shaped, almost herd-like prehistoric tribes, to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization. The catalyst for suppressing the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive was fermented fruit or grain. 'Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer must have become immediately apparent,' writes Khan. 'With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.' Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that 'brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic' era. In time, humans became more expansive in their thinking, as well as more collaborative and creative. A night of modest tippling may have ushered in these feelings of freedom — though, the morning after, instincts to conform and submit would have kicked back in to restore the social order. Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell — disorders that may result, in fact, from those primeval herd instincts kicking into overdrive. But beer's place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass. As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, 'Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.'"
Dogs, language, agriculture, evolution... the difficult part is saying what didn't give us civilization.
"To alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all of life's problems." Homer (the one not from Greece).
The real reason beer was important was that it was clean water. brewing beer kills off most of the bad things in fresh water supplies.
Lower inhibitions isn't a factor until after we had started forming cities and groups of more than a couple hundred.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
For those who want to know more, I just read this interesting and quite complete book on the archeology of alcohol. It would be worth a book review on /., but I'm not good at writing those.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Yet another Hugh Pickens blogvertisment. Seems he's now "channeling" Roland Piquepaille...
That and any grog with sufficient alcohol content allowed populations to grow because it was safer than water in many areas. Better to get a little tipsy than to get dysentery.
But it certainly makes you think you are!
And handsomer, too!
#DeleteChrome
" ... to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization"
I'm not sure where the author is really coming from, but he seems to claim that modern individuals are (a) less herd-like, and (b) innovation was helped by drinking
The only reason we are less herd-like (and we still are very herd like in our thinking - just look at how certain topics are still taboo) is that our survival doesn't directly depend on acceptance by those around us. Sure, I might not have a job if I'm a douche-bag, but chances are I can still find a way to survive. On the other hand, getting kicked out of a prehistoric tribe meant you would pretty much have to hunt alone (assuming you ran away from the tribe before they butchered you), and you wouldn't survive for long.
Also, the reaction to alcohol varies by culture. You have this idea that people lose inhibition when they drink, but in some cultures they become more harmonious (less likely to cause trouble or act out - see here).
I'd say that the leaps and bounds in infrastructure and tech have allowed us to lead more solitary lives, which also means we have less inclination to conform. Now, if you can claim that a lot of innovation/changes was created under the influence (Windows 8 design? ;) ), that would be cool (I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just creative).
TFS says "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." That goes along with an old Irish saying: "God invented alcohol to keep the Irish from conquering the world."
Free Martian Whores!
It gave us gridiron football (or rather, made it popular after it was invented on sober Ivy League college campuses) and made large state universities nearly self-supporting. Also fueled the rise of cable TV, and college spring break.
There are probably comparable phenomena in most other countries, at least in Christiandom.
ROFL.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Kind of a ridiculous argument since there were human civilizations that didn't use alcohol.
Step One “We admitted that we were powerless over our alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable”. I'll drink to that....
I am not certain that humanity has advanced at all from tribes that hunted and gathered and resembled monkeys more than modern humans. Our ancestors did not threaten the planet or the extinction of humanity. It takes "modern, rational minds" to be that wretched.
When people learned how to distill high proof alcohol it was called the greatest gift to humanity since God sent us Christ. I certainly do not see it that way at all. I consider any form of intoxication to be depraved with the single exception of the dieing or seriously injured being in need of emergency pain relief. Toleration of alcohol or drugs is not liberated it is simply wrong.
So summary: beer is late, it is missing from many cultures, and the genomics would support a much higher selection for digesting of it –as they do with milk –if a small area invented brewing and this was the core civilizing agent.
further, linguistic convergence argues for language being close to 100,000 years old, and cultural progressions, that is "fashion" are as much as 70,000 years old. The understanding of band organization - that is groups smaller than tribes that do not produce a surplus, and there fore have little to no "state" apparatus or long term castes - is not the placid realm before angst. The Australian aboriginal mythology is filled with a sense of angst as their climate changed, and they are band organized.
There are many better hypotheses for the role of intoxication in human history. Far more likely beer takes off as soon as agriculture becomes intertwined with water, because over the long term the water becomes fouled. It also has an important role when economic castes in settlements start to become forces in themselves. It may have been used as part of combat, as the only medication they had.
This doesn't even pass a simple date match of events to create a timeline.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
For the record, here, in a letter addressed to André Morellet in 1779, is what Benjamin Franklin actually did say:
Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.
That it was necessary to invent ale...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The summary reads like Ayn Rand level libertarian propaganda masking as anthropological research.
To me beer tastes like piss. Not that I drink piss, but if I were to drink piss I'd imagine it'd taste a lot like beer.
Oh damn. I forgot this is slashdot. Let me rephrase that:
Actually, to me beer tastes like piss. Not that I actually drink piss, but if I were to actually drink piss, I'd actually imagine it'd actually taste a lot like beer.
I do controls engine for a major beer company... And I tell u farmers love buying the waste yeast and grain cuz their cows love it. I should we be careful lest we become cows for the cows
Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell [...]
Yes for a very small minority. Horseshit for most everybody else, addiction is simply the only tool they've learned to use in their very very average lives.
I know that the Mayans brewed beer and if you made a bad batch they would drown you in it. The egyptian beer from what I've read was roughly around 3% ABV or so. I was on G+ and saw this article and what do you know I'm drinking a beer right now. Cheers!! Happy St Patricks Day slashdot!!
Natural means of breaking the social rigidity of herd behaviour and the bounds of primate conciousness: cannabis, psylocibin mushrooms, ergot, etc. Google Terence McKenna's "stoned ape" hypothesis.
> Lower inhibitions isn't a factor until after we had started forming cities and groups of more than a couple hundred
I don't know about that, aren't the Vikings supposed to have had a rule of thumb that you should never implement any major plan until you've discussed it while drunk? Of course that's another agricultural society, even if they weren't big on cities and the like.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
This doesn't make sense. There are a lot of people and even cultures that do not do beer or other alcohol. This article really sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
scotch. I think that's the better part of the deal. Beer and wine suck, scotch and cognac is where it's at.
This is the dumbest thing I've read in a while. It's either a joke, or the product of some addict's apologist bullpucky who enjoys getting drunk and would like to believe that he's serving some noble purpose in doing so. Lame. If you want to drink, have the courage to drink without pretending it's something other than what it is.
Anyway, making beer requires civilization beyond caveman clans sitting around campfires.
It requires agriculture. You know, fermenting harvested grains in vats which take tools and stuff to make? You don't get to agriculture and tools until you already have functional civilization in place.
... is what's keeping my wife safe and alive...
Fermented beverages are important because they tend to kill off food-borne and water-borne pathogens, pathogens that would frequently just kill you.
Not thinking about what used to be in your food and water because you get drunk is just a pleasant side effect.
Choosing beer over say, marijuana or magic mushrooms as the catalyst required for civilization to spring sounds like pathetic marketing garbage to me.
The fact that a large percentage of humans do not tolerate alcohol consumption very well at all suggests this theory sprang from the mind of Duffman.
Friar Tuck: This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about... BEER.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
is the worst thing we could do to our civilization?
The biggest problems with illegal drugs are due to them being illegal not to the drugs themselves.
Seriously, I remember myself reading this stuff over 35 yrs ago in various books and magazines. Why is this news today?
... because that's what this is all about, right?
You realize that this is totally going to piss of the Mead contingent.
that god hates us and wants us to get knocked out in a tavern brawl. because god is a dick.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Going further beyond the benefits they discovered, was the effect alcohol had on humans. People who started making alcohol found that it was very profitable, and people always came back for more. Soon it became evident that it could be used as a control mechanism, much like religion. Why do you think the earlier church organizations made and sold wine? Give the suffering fools enough alcohol, and they will be suppressed and easily manipulated. Then when they drink themselves to sickness, the church either condemned them, or came across as their saviors. Alcohol was used by the Egyptians to ensure slaves were kept under control, and somewhat "content" for continued work. Probably the most destructive, poisonous, and debilitating substance put in a human body; alcohol is the only thing keeping modern slavery in working order. We gladly work our entire lives without much to show for it in the end. While the elite, super rich sit back and watch us kill ourselves when we need to hit the bar to numb our angst (as the article states). Religion exists for controlling several billion, while alcohol and drugs keeps the rest under a pretty tight rein.
...But beer is a great way for ugly people to get laid.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
While it might be the alcohol that had helped jump start the human society, in places around the world alcohol is being banned
If this anti-alcohol trend is to continue, we might even seen a reverse course of human civilization ... from individualistic behavior back to the herd-like behavior
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
is a compelling theory.
However, the "modern" person has more to cope with, than just the loss of nomadic freedom.
Now we've got long forms, complex investments, licensing fees. Most of us aren't farming or doing the things that the herders turned farmers had to cope with.
So perhaps we now use ritalin and oxycontin to "cope" with the coping for our new, non-nomadic technical lifestyle.
I'm not sure however, so I'll tweet the idea to my friends and take another anti-depressant.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
we are not herd-like at all, in modern times. No, at all. Nope. No, sir. Independent, rational. Not herdlike. Nope.
The quote about "God" should in this case be written as "god" as Benjamin Franklin (and many of his peers) were not religious and shunned it somewhat as they did not believe in "God".
It explains a lot.
Honestly, having heard people extol the "virtues" of alcohol for decades now, I'm heartily sick of all the bullshit.
No one thing "gave" us civilization. Alcohol generation, consumption, and the ancillary skills required to do so are merely one of NUMEROUS building blocks.
Anyone telling you differently and yammering about how IMPORTANT alcohol/beer is, is merely trying to excuse all the idiocy that goes with alcohol consumption.
"What'd you do two nights ago?"
"Got drunk, wrecked a car and woke up with a fat girl."
"What'd you do the night after that?"
"Got drunk, wrecked another car and woke up with an ugly girl."
"What'd you do last night."
"Got drunk, wrecked YOUR car and woke up to the realization that both the previous night's companions had actually been guys..."
"Oh man! I didn't need to hear that!"
"But it's okay! Because beer gave us civilization man!"
"Man! God must LOVE us!"
No. All this proves is that some mental defective has killed too many brain cells.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.
As as "painfully shy" individual, I can tell you that by the time I have drunk enough to "quell my angst", I don't have much of a mind left to speak.
Also: Ballmer limit.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
This argument can be made for any form of mind altering substance. Beer was traditionally used as cheap fuel for slave labour so it is probably a stronger argument if you use psilocybin or marijuana.
Beer helped civilization in the sense that its fermentation made water drinkable, as opposed to a microbe culture broth that would almost certainly kill you if you drank it. Other than that this summary sounds like nonsense.
Beer makes civilisations?
Beer in 'Amurika' is mostly diluted crap (like sex in a canoe - too cold and fucking close to water).
Ergo: We found the reason why America's on the decline...
And hey, I found another nice correlation: Most islamic countries are run-down. Guess what: They also don't have beer!
WTF lactose intolerance among Asian has got to do with evidence that Asians weren't into beer drinking in neolithic times?
All Asian lactose intolerance seems to indicate is a big gap between past transhuman migration/herding & modern dairy products in their diet, without a long culture/history of settled dairy farming in between.
What this has to do with beer is beyond me.
Humans are not a bunch of herd-minded cows that need over-educated institutional elites telling us what to do.
Terence McKenna has a nice theory on this, and to me a much more plausible one.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have followed large livestock, and so encountered psylocibine containing mushrooms growing near their faeces. This is supposed to have sparked consciousness. Fast forward a few hundred years when the hunter-gatherers have become farmers, and now they preserve their meat sealed off from air in honey. The sugar in the honey goes on to produce the first alcoholic beverage known as mede. Up until this time people would have been polygamous, without any notion of which kids are who's, and so acting in the benefit of the group.
When mede comes into the picture, people suddenly become possesive, monogamous and start waging war. According to McKenna's theory, beer was a major step back.
The old rather have a bottle in front of me instead of a frontal lobotomy, I wonder how psychoatives fit into this problem, not to mention dysfunctionalism, addiction, desease, and death. IIt's an old rubrick that primitives are "primitive" in many ways they are more sophisticated that individuals alive today, they didn't have utube and had large brains and intact and caring social structures and were able to reason abstractly and hadn't bought into the mythology of "science"
well said.i really appreciate it..from willingways.org
We should not talk about humans as a "herd." That would be like talking about a herd of wolves.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
we never have been herd-like in the absence of the threat of force.
This is b.s. An Italian doctor traveled for years documenting how all animals, not just mammals but birds and insects, try to alter their consciousness with "booze". He wrote a book titled "Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter Consciousness".
` As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, 'Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.'" `
How can you invoke God to make your point, and then claim the man was rational?
Beer Brewing Paralleled the Rise of Civilization by Kurt Stoppkotte for National Geographic News, April 24, 2001. [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/04/0424_kurtbeer.html]]
This is NOT news.