SFU research shows how beer gave us civilization
Posted March 22, 2013 7:59 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – And then there was beer. A 50-page scholarly paper by, of course, Canadian researchers suggests brewing was crucial to the creation of modern, human civilization.
The study comes out of SFU. No less a weighty publication than the New York Times summed it up with the headline “How Beer Gave us Civilization.”
Here’s the theory, 10,000 years ago, the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers became the cradle of agriculture.
What’s good about settling down and farming? Harvest time feasting and grain-based brewing. In fact, the researchers argue that domestication of cereals may have been for the purpose of beer-making rather than basic subsistence.
SFU emeritus professor Brian Hayden tells the National Post beer was an important part of “making feasts such powerful tools for attracting people and getting them committed to producing surpluses” in the pivotal shift to settled, stable, culturally complex communities.
The rest is history.
Thank you beer.
