11,000-Year-Old Grain Shakes Up Beliefs On Beginnings Of Agriculture

Jerusalem Post ^ | 6-18-2006 | Judy Siegel-Itzkovich

[blam]

Jun. 18, 2006 0:24 | Updated Jun. 18, 2006 10:45

11,000-year-old grain shakes up beliefs on beginnings of agriculture

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

Bar-Ilan University researchers have found a cache of 120,000 wild oat and 260,000 wild barley grains at the Gilgal archaeological site near Jericho that date back 11,000 years - providing evidence of cultivation during the Neolithic Period.

The research, performed by Drs. Ehud Weiss and Anat Hartmann of BIU's department of Land of Israel studies and Prof. Mordechai Kislev of the faculty of life sciences, appears in the June 16 edition of the prestigious journal Science.

It is the second time in two weeks that Kislev and Hartmann have had an article in Science. They recently wrote about their discovery of 10,000-year-old cultivated figs at the same Jordan Valley site.

According to the researchers, the newest find shows that the transition from nomadic food gathering and the beginning of agriculture were quite different than previously thought. Until now, the general assumption has been that agriculture was begun by a single line of human efforts in one specific area. But the BIU researchers found a much more complicated effort undertaken by different human populations in different regions, drawing a completely new picture of the origins of agriculture.

Agriculture, the BIU researchers suggest, originated through human manipulations of wild plants - sometimes involving the same species - that took place in various spatially and temporally distinct communities. Moreover, some of these occasions were found to be much earlier than previously thought possible.

[Grut]

Brigid is said to have changed her dirty bathwater into beer...

I can't decide if this explains lite beer, or the later Schlitz.

[TASMANIANRED]

Someone cooked the barley and then let it sit in the pot.

Liquid+starch+fermentation=Ethanol.

[TASMANIANRED]

It's the same process of making sour dough breads...

Yeast floating in the air innoculate the moist dough.

[Lx]

Viola!

[RobbyS]

Good stuff. It will do for breakfast.

[wayne_b24]

yuck! frosty mud?!
i'll stick with a Guinness...

[caveat emptor]

Maybe it was an offshoot of breadmaking.

Beer is sometimes called "liquid bread". I've heard of beer riots after brewers started using cheap sugar from the new world.

Two cans of malt syrup, one hopped and one plain, makes a tasty home brew.

[AnalogReigns]

"nings Of Agriculture, Red Badger wrote:

How does one "discover" beer? Wine I can see. Grape juice, sits in storage till it ferments and viola, you've got wine. Beer, on the other hand, requires a scientific approach to brewing ingredients, cooking, fermenting, etc. One does not accidentally come upon beer, it must be planned and researched........."

For what we would call modern, drinkable beer true. We have the medieval scholastic monks to thank for that...most all of what we now know as beer came from their experimentation.

However, just a fermented grain drink...requires no great science. Leave some grain in a container (even a hole in rock) of water for a few days, strain out the grain, and the result is beer. Easier almost than wine. Not very potable by our standards, but in neolithic times, I'm sure lovely. Archeologically, "beer" just means a brew from fermented grains, not Bitberger Pilsener, or Chimay Red, hence to be a basic beer, doesn't mean what we know of as beer today.

Besides usually the craftsmenship of the ancient world is greater than we imagine. They may well have had a potable grain beverage (beer) that we would find delicious.

In King Midas' tomb, the remnents of the evaporated beverage s in the chalices were analyzed...finding a sophisticated brewed mix of grape must, honey, and barley all brewed together (like a combination of wine, mead and beer...but not mixed, but fermented at the same time). I've had Dogfish Head brewery's attempt at recreating it, and it is a very delicious beerwinemead...which doesn't fit any category of taste I've known. We shouldn't think the ancients as tasteless!

[freepatriot32]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

updated List of Ping lists vol.III(Get Your Fresh Hot Pings Here!)

[wolfcreek]

I was referring to Guinness. LOL!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

*** she changed the water, which was used for the bath, into an excellent beer, by the sheer strength of her blessing and dealt it out to the thirsty in plenty."***

Isn't that what the nut that started the AUM SHIN RYKIO cult did with his bath water? he is the one responsible for the Tokyo subway poison gas attacks. ( His was not changed to beer.)

[Bernard Marx]

That would also push back the discovery of beer.

Naw. The guys were making beer from sand long before cereal crops were domesticated.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

We know who discovered beer, it was written down in a song:

"A long time ago, way back in history,
when all there was to drink was nothin but cups of tea.
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops,
and he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.

He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer beer beer
tiddly beer beer beer.

The Curtis bar, the James' Pub, the Hole in the Wall as well
one thing you can be sure of, its Charlie's beer they sell
so all ye lads a lasses at eleven O'clock ye stop
for five short seconds, remember Charlie Mops 1 2 3 4 5

He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer beer beer
tiddly beer beer beer.

A barrel of malt, a bushel of hops, you stir it around with a stick,
the kind of lubrication to make your engine tick.
40 pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks.
Its only eight pence hapenny and one and six in tax, 1 2 3 4 5

He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer beer beer
tiddly beer beer beer.

The Lord bless Charlie Mops!"

[Eagle9]

Birds and bears get drunk on berries and fruit fermenting right on the vine. Wine happens.

I saw a program on the Discovery Channel several years ago that followed a colony (or whatever a group is called) of either baboons or monkeys for a whole year. It was compressed into a one hour program but at one point in the season, apples or some other fruit ripened and fell from the tree and began to rot on the ground. This would lead to natural fermentation from the heat, sugar, and yeast. The baboons would eat the fermenting fruit and get drunk. The film footage of these drunk baboons staggering around and finally falling down to pass out and sleep it off was really hilarious. Seems like it was in the Kalahari.

[VadeRetro]

Yeah, a drunk baboon troop is funny. But wait'll it's bears.

[arthurus]

and viola, you've got wine

Does that mean there are strings attached?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. A multirow barley sample was RC dated (non-calibrated) to 14,000 years BP. And since that was at least ten years ago, the sample must be 14,010 years old by now. ;')

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[bioqubit]

Such drivelous nonsense. I was sitting at the Bobst Library at New York University in the late 70s reading all about theories about multiple points of origin for agriculture. What they are claiming as "new" is really OLD news.

[SunkenCiv]

recently wrote about their discovery of 10,000-year-old cultivated figs at the same Jordan Valley site.

So, for the first THOUSAND YEARS, no one could make a fig newton. Not my kind of place.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Is it too late to turn this grain into extremely pre-aged Bourbon?

[tarheelswamprat]

a cache of 120,000 wild oat and 260,000 wild barley grains...

What I'd like to know is, who counted them? /grin

[Ditto]

Yeah, a drunk baboon troop is funny. But wait'll it's bears.

Bears can be mean drunks.

[VadeRetro]

I thought that had to be a photoshop from Nick Nolte's mugshot, but the ugly aloha shirts don't match.

[ApplegateRanch]

You don't need to add yeast to wort to make beer. It can happen on it's own.

Viola! Music hath charms to tame the wild yeast?

Wild yeast, wild grain, wild hops, water, and wild honey = wild nights, for those who on the honeyed dew hath fed.

Like sourdough, this gives sour beer?

Next thing you know, you have Wally Cox singing "There's A Tavern In The Town"...soon followed by Slim Dusty complaining about a "Tavern With No Beer".

[ApplegateRanch]

And Moses came down from the mountain with a frosty mud and said "Let there be beer". The people rejoiced.

At that point, he tripped, splashing them with the brew, giving rise to the old toast, "Here's mud in your eye!"

[wafflehouse]

ROFLMAO
is that where the saying comes from?
you know, some variant of "i'd drink her bathwater"?

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I suspect serious beer making came before serious bread making, myself...

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[wayne_b24]

wow - that's what my wife said, too!
it's full of iron. you see signs in ireland saying "guinness is good for you". i believe 'em.

[Red Badger]

Does that mean there are strings attached?

No, a girl named Viola. You know: A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou..............The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam

[Red Badger]

Spontaneous Fermentation? Is that like The Immaculate Transubstantiation?.............

[Red Badger]

Johnny Marijuana Seed had been by there in olden times.........67-72.................8^)........

[zeugma]

Ah, yes---beer---"Proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

Actually Master Franklin was close to the truth, but not quite there.

There are, in fact, three things that prove both the existance of G-d, and that he wants us to be happy:

1. Beer
2. Chocolate
3. Coffee

 

[Wonder Warthog]

"There are, in fact, three things that prove both the existance of G-d, and that he wants us to be happy--beer, chocolate, coffee",p> True, but beer was the one he gave us FIRST.

[zeugma]

True, but beer was the one he gave us FIRST.

That's because He loves us!;-)

[Lady Jag]

If the world is as it seems, there will always be Johnny PotSeeds roaming the earth.

[teeman8r]

i think i just sinned thinking about drinking the bath water of a nun and saint... so many things to comment on like maundy Thirsty... to paschal time...

cheers

teeman

[teeman8r]

and another thing... is this what lies ahead for the new seed depository in the arctic... some guy digging it up 10,000 years from now and wondering if they'll germinate... seems we can save some bucks and just use all these seeds...

it'll turn out they didn't plant these seeds because they caused a plague to the fields so they hid them in an underground cache so no one would sow them... how lucky are we....

teeman

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.