According to the article man developed through evolution the ability to digest alcohol somewhere between 9000 years ago and 10 million years ago. Depends on who you ask.... I’m not sure either camp has a real clue.
“According to the article man developed through evolution the ability to digest alcohol somewhere between 9000 years ago and 10 million years ago. “
Alcohol, like cocaine, works because your body already makes it. In the case of alcohol, it performs two natural functions. It makes our alimentary canal MUCH more efficient, which means we can carry less gut, making us leaner, maneuverable and relatively fast. The other thing it does is work as a signal telling the body, if you have extra calories, store them in the front of the abdomen. (Really, it’s that specific.) We have learned to call this area the beer gut.
That is not what it says.
You have to read past the intro.
Closer to 10 million years ago, because primates have been eating fruit fermented on the tree and on the ground ever since they acquired the genetic means to digest such fruit. Mammals like sweet foods, and sweet foods ferment to produce alcohols.
I read the whole article, and the posts here, and understand the confusion.
The article simply points out that in the past there were various ideas proposed for when mankind first adapted the ability to digest alcohol -- was it 80 million years ago, or just 9,000?
So, the whole point of this article is to report on new research which gives us a new date: 10 million years ago.
Wherever did this new date come from?
From comparing the DNA of various primates, to see which ones could digest alcohol, and which couldn't.
Turns out, if I understand it correctly, the split came between human and orangutan lines, around 10 million years ago.
Humans "got it", orangutans don't.
Now, some here have posted this must mean our ancestors got so loaded on fermented fruit, they fell out of their trees, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But clearly, it's the reverse: our ancestors, having come down out of their trees to eat the forbidden fermented fruit, got so loaded they couldn't climb back up, and their orangutan cousins kicked them out of the canopy! ;-) Obviously, it would not be their last expulsion.