Beer Domesticated Man

[n2doc]

The domestication of wild grains has played a major role in human evolution, facilitating the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture. You might think that the grains were used for bread, which today represents a basic staple. But some scientists argue that it wasn’t bread that motivated our ancestors to start grain farming. It was beer. Man, they say, chose pints over pastry.

Beer has plenty to recommend it over bread. First, and most obviously, it is pleasant to drink. “Beer had all the same nutrients as bread, and it had one additional advantage,” argues Solomon H. Katz, an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Namely, it gave early humans the same pleasant buzz it gives us. Patrick E. McGovern, the director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania, goes even further. Beer, he says, was more nutritious than bread. It contains “more B vitamins and [more of the] essential amino acid lysine,” McGovern writes in his book, Uncorking the Past: the Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. It was also safer to drink than water, because the fermentation process killed pathogenic microorganisms. “With a four to five percent alcohol content, beer is a potent mind-altering and medicinal substance,” McGovern says, adding that ancient brewers acted as medicine men.

In fact, McGovern has found that the ancients used beer as medicine. Working with the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, McGovern discovered traces of sage and thyme in ancient Egyptian jars. Luteolin, which is in sage, and ursolic acid, which is in thyme, both have anti-cancer properties. Similarly, artemisinin and isoscopolein from wormwood fight cancer, and were found in ancient Chinese rice wine. “The ancient fermented beverages constituted the universal medicine of humankind before the advent of synthetic medicines,” McGovern says.

more

http://nautil.us/issue/8/home/beer-domesticated-man

[LiberalEsto]

1. Many early brewers were women, not men

"An article by Stephanie Montell in Brewing Techniques (July/August 1994) discusses the history of women brewers:"

"According to beer historian Alan Eames, the religious myths of ancient societies credit the creation of beer to women. For the Pharaonic Egyptians, the goddess Hathor invented beer. She was worshiped throughout the dynastic ages as the “queen of drunkness and dance and the inventress of beer” (1). For the ancient Fins, however, ale was created by three women: Osmotor, Kapo, and Kalevatar. While trying to prepare for a wedding feast, Kalevatar combined saliva from a bear with wild honey, added it to beer, and created the gift of ale (1)."

"In Europe, female brewers were the norm. In England during the 1700s, a survey found 78% of licensed brewers were women (1)."

From:
https://brewess.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/history-of-women-brewers/

[Warpy]

2. Exactly, and likely discovered when a batch of watery gruel sat too long off heat

Some woman poured the nasty water off and being thrifty, drank it, got swacked, and said "gee, this isn't half bad!" and beer was born.

Before then, they likely waited for fruit to ferment before they ate it, able to get loaded only in season.