World's oldest brewery discovered, was making beer 13,000 years ago

FoxNews.com ^ | Sept 14, 2018 | James Rogers

[ETL]

Researchers from the U.S. and Israel have found evidence of the world’s oldest beer-making in an Israeli cave.

Scientists studied three 13,000-year-old stone mortars uncovered in the Raqefet Cave near what is now the Israeli city of Haifa. Residues confirmed that the mortars were used for brewing of wheat and barley, as well as for food storage.

Experts from Stanford University and the University of Haifa participated in the research. “This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world,” said Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology at Stanford, in a statement.

The cave formed part of a prehistoric graveyard used by the Natufian people, providing a clue to beer’s role in their culture.

Experts believe that the Natufians brewed beer as part of ritual feasts that honored the dead. “This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture,” said Liu.

The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, notes that the earliest bread remains discovered were recently uncovered from a Natufian site in Jordan. The bread remains could be between 11,600 and 14,600 years old, according to Liu, who says that beer findings could be from 11,700 to 13,700 years ago.

The Natufians likely used a three-stage brewing process that first turned the starch of wheat or barley into starch. The malt would then be mashed or heated and then left to ferment with airborne wild yeast.

Prehistoric beer, however, was quite unlike our modern brews, according to Jiajing Wang, a doctoral student at Stanford and co-author of the study. The Natufian brew was most likely a “multi-ingredient concoction like porridge or thin gruel,” the research says.

[ETL]

A map shows the location of Raqefet Cave and additional Natufian sites in Mt. Carmel; field photos of the studied boulder mortars and the the cave floor
(scale bar and arrow: 20 cm); a functional reconstruction of the mortars: a boulder mortar used to store plants in a basket with a stone slab on top, and a
bedrock mortar used for pounding and cooking plants and brewing beer.
(Credits to Elsevier, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Credits for photos: Dror Maayan; Graphic design: Anat Regev-Gisis)

[ETL]

[Vermont Lt]

Natufians brewed beer as part of ritual feasts that honored the dead.
-—————-

Who knew that the Irish came from Israel. Ha ha.

[oldasrocks]

Probably made by accident by a vegetarian (lousy hunter) who was trying to make porridge.

[ETL]

[OttawaFreeper]

Maybe this person should have been notified about this place.

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

2nd oldest profession?

[laplata]

Lol

[ETL]

Microscopic traces of ancient starches extracted from the Raqefet Cave (left) are compared to the references Stanford
University Prof. Li Liu and her research replicated in their beer brewing experiments. (Credit: Li Liu)

[ETL]

[ETL]

[bgill]

Oldest. First ever. Only. Yeah, sure, until they find another older whatever.

[Ronald_Magnus]

[ETL]

A team of Stanford University and Israeli archaeologists stand in the entrance to Raqefet Cave, where they found
evidence for the oldest man-made alcohol in the world. From left, Dani Nadel, Li Liu, Jiajing Wang and Hao Zhao.
(Image credit: Li Liu)

[ETL]

In their case, I’m ok with that! :)

[Batman11]

Somebody has to photoshop PIAPS wrinkled, old, ugly mug into that coven....

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[Natufian]

Dude, I knew my people were good but this shows they were really good!!

[Fai Mao]

Please, pass me a bottle of something. Quick I say!

[Reily]

Israeli graduate schools full of Chinese students too?