May Beer Have Helped Lead to the Rise of Civilization?

“Beer is sacred stuff in most traditional societies,” described Bryan Hayden, archeologists at Simon Fraser University in Canada. According to LiveScience.com, beer could have possibly led to the rise of civilization. Research has shown that Stone Age peoples would domestic cereal grains, not to fill their stomachs, but to lighten their heads.

This whole idea came about due to the fact that there was a good amount of work that had to be done to make the grains edible enough to eat and this would be done usually for a feast of some sort. The feasts were important community gatherings and having beer sparked interest to the other people.

"It's not that drinking and brewing by itself helped start cultivation, it's this context of feasts that links beer and the emergence of complex societies," Hayden said.

Beer was usually made to impress guests, make them happy, and alter their attitudes favorably towards the host. The idea was that the people who held the feast would get reciprocated for their work. For example, they would be invited to someone's feast and get the same hospitality.

Although there is significant amount of evidence pointing to the correctness of this theory, there still needs to be more exploration.

I'm not going to lie, the first thing that caught my attention to this article was the word “beer.” I thought to myself, 'How does beer relate to science?' After reading the article I was quite stunned to realize that this could really be true. It's funny to relate Stone Age people to our society today. Clearly, nothing has changed.