What Came First, Bread or Beer?
Understanding the motivations for the agricultural revolution
Bread has been the foundation of societies across land and time. Given its importance to civilization, many historians and archaeologists have concluded that the rise of agriculture was motivated by an evergrowing need for bread.
To go against the grain on this assumption, I would like to explore a contrasting hypothesis that beer, not bread, drove the rise of the agricultural revolution.
While the research into this topic is limited, it nonetheless provides a unique perspective in understanding humanity’s past.
Ancient Beer was Much Different than Today
The modern conception of beer drastically differs from anything Neolithic people would have consumed.
Ancient beer resembled a flat porridge more than anything expected by modern drinkers. With Sumerian beer, the alcohol percentage was typically around 2 percent (but could go up to 5 percent).
So why drink beer?
Unlike its modern counterpart, ancient beer was considered a staple of the Mesopotamian diet. It contained the carbs, protein, and calories necessary for a healthy population.
In addition, beer provided a reliable alternative for hydration, as clean drinking water was hard to come by.
It was also easier to make than bread; while making bread was a multi-step process, ancient beer only required mashed-up grains and water.
This fondness for beer made its way into religion as well. As one Sumerian proverb declared
He who does not know beer, does not know what is good
From religious to cultural to medicinal, beer had many uses in the ancient world. The Babylonians alone had over 70 varieties of beer.
The Beer Before Bread Theory
Widespread domestication of grains began roughly in 10,000 BCE in the Middle East.
While agriculture independently originated in multiple parts of the globe (China, Mesoamerica, Papua New Guinea), West Asia is believed to be the oldest.
The theory of beer before bread is relatively recent, with the first mentioned being from Dr. Robert J. Braidwood’s 1953 Symposium, Did Man Once Live by Beer Alone?
In this symposium, Dr. Braidwood argues that wild wheat combined with the complexity of baking would have made bread-making very improbable.
However, these wheat varieties would have been easily fermented into an early form of beer.
A 2018 Stanford study analyzed Natufian stone mortars, finding evidence of fermented beverage storage from ca. 13,000 years ago.
Residue analyses have indicated the use of malted wheat and barley, likely to make beer for ritual feasts that venerated the dead (13,700–11,700 cal. BP).
Archaeologist Dr. Li Liu takes this into note when concluding 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
Early Agriculture was less efficient than Hunting and Gathering
Farming is typically viewed as the next step for humanity. While agriculture has provided us with many more opportunities in advancing society, it wasn’t always that way.
Early humans who switched to agriculture had a significantly worse quality of life when compared to their hunting and gathering counterparts.
Skeletal Analyses of hunter-gatherer bones found that their bone density was 20% higher due to diet and lifestyle. The study states that
human hunter-gatherers from around 7,000 years ago had bones comparable in strength to modern orangutans, farmers from the same area over 6,000 years later had significantly lighter and weaker bones that would have been more susceptible to breaking.
A 2019 University of Cambridge Study observing modern tribes found that Hunter-gatherers in the Philippines who convert to farming work around ten hours a week longer than their forager neighbors.
Looking at the evidence for hunter-gatherers, the drop in quality of life appears to be drastic.
Why would early humans change to a worse way of living?
As previous studies have concluded, the initial rise of agriculture appears to be less functional and more ceremonial.
In other words, early humans’ love for beer superseded their need for bread.
Evidence of Hunter-Gatherers Brewing Beer
The site of Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important discoveries from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
While Sumerian civilization is believed to have started around 5,000 BCE, Göbekli Tepe has evidence of habitation as far back as 11,000 BCE.
What still baffles many archaeologists is that hunter-gatherer tribes constructed the megalithic site. This contradicts the mainstream assumption that agriculture led to permanent settlements.
A 2012 research paper by Cambridge University found evidence of potential beer brewing within the site.
An initial test discovered evidence of oxalate from several limestone vessels
Oxalate develops during the steeping, mashing and fermentation of cereals and can indicate the production of malt and beer.
While the research is not fully conclusive, the evidence of possible malting, fermenting, and brewing points toward the conclusion that alcohol was used by societies before the adoption of agriculture.
The paper concludes by asserting that drinking alcohol and ritual feasting was likely part of the social incentive structure that transitioned “hunting and gathering societies to food-producing early village-farming communities.”
Research is Ongoing
The history of beer has always been a contentious one. While its place in society is unchanging, its place in archaeology is anything but.
It's exciting learning about humanity’s past; reinterpreting past narratives shows how similar we are to our ancient selves.
Sometimes, that can be as simple as sharing a glass of beer.
Until next time…
