Post by source on Sept 18, 2018 22:54:42 GMT
By Amy Beringer Smith, September 14, 2018 www.newhistorian.com/
New evidence suggests that 13,000 year old stone mortars from Raqefet Cave in Israel were used in brewing cereal-based beer – millennia before we thought beer was invented.
A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports would suggest that beer brewing was being practiced in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence.
In an archaeological collaboration between the US’ Stanford University and the Israeli University of Haifa, three stone mortars from a 13,000-year-old Natufian burial cave were analysed. They have now confirmed that these mortars were used for brewing what and barley.
Li Liu, PhD from Stanford University says: “Alcohol making and food storage were among the major technological innovations that eventually led to the development of civilizations in the world, and archaeological science is a powerful means to help reveal their origins and decode their contents… We are excited to have the opportunity to present our findings, which shed new light on a deeper history of human society.”
Significantly, this places the brewing of beer earlier than the establishment of sedentary villages and cereal agriculture.
Photo credit: AFP
New evidence suggests that 13,000 year old stone mortars from Raqefet Cave in Israel were used in brewing cereal-based beer – millennia before we thought beer was invented.
A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports would suggest that beer brewing was being practiced in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence.
In an archaeological collaboration between the US’ Stanford University and the Israeli University of Haifa, three stone mortars from a 13,000-year-old Natufian burial cave were analysed. They have now confirmed that these mortars were used for brewing what and barley.
Li Liu, PhD from Stanford University says: “Alcohol making and food storage were among the major technological innovations that eventually led to the development of civilizations in the world, and archaeological science is a powerful means to help reveal their origins and decode their contents… We are excited to have the opportunity to present our findings, which shed new light on a deeper history of human society.”
Significantly, this places the brewing of beer earlier than the establishment of sedentary villages and cereal agriculture.
Photo credit: AFP
