Posted on 04/22/2019 5:42:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A thousand years ago, the Wari empire stretched across Peru. At its height, it covered an area the size of the Eastern seaboard of the US from New York City to Jacksonville. It lasted for 500 years, from 600 to 1100 AD, before eventually giving rise to the Inca. That's a long time for an empire to remain intact, and archaeologists are studying remnants of the Wari culture to see what kept it ticking. A new study found an important factor that might have helped: a steady supply of beer...
Nearly twenty years ago, Williams, Nash, and their team discovered an ancient Wari brewery in Cerro Baúl in the mountains of southern Peru... And since the beer they brewed, a light, sour beverage called chicha, was only good for about a week after being made, it wasn't shipped offsite -- people had to come to festivals at Cerro Baúl to drink it. These festivals were important to Wari society -- between one and two hundred local political elites would attend, and they would drink chicha from three-foot-tall ceramic vessels decorated to look like Wari gods and leaders...
One, the vessels were made of clay that came from nearby, and two, the beer was made of pepper berries, an ingredient that can grow even during a drought. Both these things would help make for a steady beer supply -- even if a drought made it hard to grow other chicha ingredients like corn, or if changes in trade made it hard to get clay from far away, vessels of pepper berry chicha would still be readily available.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
That particular culture *did vanish*, after all...
They were some that really got drunk.
Some took hallucinogens regularly.
Others smoked tobacco occasionally.
Some farmed.
Others got most of their food from the sea.
Every tribe was different.
No matter what they tell you about any group of people you can probably find an exception. Sometimes, a lot of them.
Some took hallucinogens regularly.
Ancient Democrats
But if you knew how chicha was made in Peru you probably wouldn't drink it.
Chicha morada Peru; unfermented chicha made from purple maize and boiled with pineapple and spices.
Warm spit - to give it a little kick.
The Huron Indians praised diversity, and now they’re extirpated.
Only the labels change, not the people.
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