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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.'"
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.
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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.
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Well, beer in the old days wasn't as strong as know, so yes you could leave mostly drinking only beer. Check out 'small beer'. Workers had two gallons or so of the stuff to drink daily!
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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.
I doubt that claim as well. Beer was a byproduct of agriculture, not a causative agent.
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The first evidence of the growing of grain predates the first evidence of beer by a considerable length of time. We don't know all the answers, but we do know that the earliest grain crops were grown in northern Iraq and northern Iran, and that it appears that it started as a sort seasonal planting by semi-nomadic groups that would return to harvest the grain later. The innovation, whatever drove it, was to be able to learn sufficiently advanced techniques to increase yields so that you could stay by the crops; to defend them, to maintain them. That's the feedback right there.
Beer is something that comes along, by the looks of it, after we have pretty much all the basics of sedentary agricultural societies already in place.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nope. They came along much too late to be relevant to this discussion.
Beer back then may have had a lower alcohol content then. The boiling of water is the first factor in killing harmful bacteria. Fruit was added after the mashing process (extracting of sugar from grain) to add the yeast needed for brewing. From what I understand, beer was the reason that ancient civilizations started to farm so they could harvest grain.
Beer brewing leaves an archeological trace? All you need is a container.
On ancient Middle-Eastern archaeological sites, you find beer breweries and bread bakeries side by side. It's virtually as regular as the floor plan of post-11th century Benedictine monasteries in Europe.
Ezekiel 23:20
The vats, with a height of at least 65cm and a maximum diameter of 85cm, are estimated to have contained about 16 gallons (65 litres) each. The six vats together could thus hold approximately 100 gallons (390 litres). If used on a full time basis, this brewery could produce 300 gallons a week allowing 2 days for fermentation in the vat. Output could be as high as 300 gallons a day if the liquid was transferred to other vessels for fermentation. This is output clearly far in excess of domestic needs. Using the capacity of the standard beer jar of Dynastic times, the daily output of brewery of 300 gallons a day could provide a daily ration for 454 people if each received one jar, or half that number if they received two (the standard Dynastic ration).
This was a substantial operation by the day's standards.
Ezekiel 23:20
Actually, considering that many animals show evidence of intentionally seeking out alcohol (overripe fruit, etc.), and some such as elephants actually make it themselves (pulping and burying fruit that they later dig up and consume)
I think this is baloney. When I Googled for information on elephants making their own booze, I instead got a page full of articles debunking the myth that they even get drunk at all, much less make their own. Here is a link from National Geographic. There are plenty more like it.
I've seen plenty of grain-processing tools. No, you can't tell 10,000 years later whether the grain ground up was going in beer or flour for baking. But baking and beer could be determined by the oven/stove setup. You sound like a smart person with a large gap of knowledge who is asking stupid questions without any deference to authority. If someone says "it was done this way" don't argue unless you know that to be wrong. Otherwise, it makes you look stupid. Go take a college class if you really want to know. There are thousands of years of anthropology you are asking for in a couple sound bites. It isn't going to work very well, and the ones persistent enough to continue answering are likely ones that don't know that much, but enjoy the arguing.
And yes, sugar-heavy fruits were likely fermented well before grains.
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Come on people! Did none of you watch the Discovery Channel, at least before it changed to a reality TV format?
There are countless tribes in the Amazon, Africa, Polynesia, etc who ferment grains and starches. None of them practice agriculture to any large extent, and many are purely hunter-gatherer.
Spit into a bowl of pulp-of-some-tree, mix, wait, get drunk. This isn't rocket science. We've clearly been doing it long before agriculture.
And animals do it, too, apparently, if other posts in this thread are to believed. Apparently fermenting shit is really easy, except for, perhaps industrial man. The problem is that you're all perfectionists. 10000 years ago people weren't so damn picky.
Except that soda is usually made in a local factory from local water supplies, that may not be properly treated. Coke in Pakistan for many years was made with polluted and unsafe water, sickening many drinkers before there was a huge public outcry.
You can make some pretty good alcohol from honey, which is already known during the hunter/gatherer phase of civilization. Technically not beer, but as quite a few similar properties, especially when it comes to drinking safety.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Why is American beer served chilled? There's no other way of telling it from piss.
American beer is cold; piss is warm.
Macrobrews, maybe. But the USA has an unbelievable variety of extremely high quality microbrews and craft beers. Might be hard to find them abroad, but if you look at beer contest winners the world over, you will see USA brews in the top spots constantly.
It's not the alcohol content but the boiling that makes beer safe to consume. Ancient beers probably didn't go over 4% ABV, well within the tolerance range of many bacteria. Boiling, however, kills any enteric bacteria, worms, and any other bugs / critters in the water likely to cause disease. Wine tends to be safe without boiling since it's made from fruit juice, not fruit + water from that filthy pond over by the latrine.
A more technical answer is that, if you simply toss water and milled (cracked, but not ground into flour) grains together, you don't get a particularly lively fermentation. Boiling gelatinizes the grains and helps break down long chain starches into shorter ones that are chewed up by yeast and bacteria faster than they would otherwise be. From there, you take some of the sludge from your previous, best tasting batch of beer and use that to kick start the fermentation of the new beer. Supposedly, ancient Egyptians boiled loaves of bread to make their beer.
FWIW, ancient brews were probably a LOT like kefir -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir