A set of lengthy silver and gold tubes dug up from a famous grave in the the Caucuses have been found to represent the oldest surviving drinking straws, with the scientists behind the discovery believing they were used for communal beer consumption. The specimens are 5,000 years old and help deepen our understanding of drinking culture in ancient hierarchical societies. The set of eight tubes was unearthed back in 1987 in the Maikop Kurgan burial mound, a famous grave for Bronze Age elites in the Northern Caucasus. Researchers had since concluded the meter-plus-long tubes to be poles for a canopy,...