DID BEER LEAD TO THE INVENTION OF AGRICULTURE?

DID BEER LEAD TO THE INVENTION OF AGRICULTURE? I had a conversation recently with my friend Don Warfield in which he told me about the archaeological theory that hunter gatherers turned to agriculture because of beer. This article describes the theory of biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern that it was the discovery of beer that led hunter-gatherers to develop agriculture approximately 11,000 years ago. McGovern says: “Available evidence suggests that our ancestors in Asia, Mexico, and Africa cultivated wheat, rice, corn, barley, and millet primarily for the purpose of producing alcoholic beverages.” McGovern rests his argument not only on physical evidence but also on the premise that it would have been more difficult for early man to learn to bake bread than it would be to learn to make alcoholic beverages. The theory is sometimes referred to as the “beer before bread” hypothesis. This Smithsonian article tells more about the research by Patrick McGovern into “identifying traces of alcoholic drinks on prehistoric finds.”