Why Did Humans Start Drinking Alcohol?

Why Did Humans Start Drinking Alcohol? Most of us assume civilization came first: people settled down, started farming, built villages, and only later figured out how to brew. But the evidence may point the other way. Our attraction to alcohol goes back around 10 million years, to primates eating fallen, fermenting fruit. About 13,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in Raqefet Cave, Israel, may have been brewing a beer-like drink from wild grain, before farming existed. Soon after, people gathered at Göbekli Tepe for feasts on a scale archaeologists are still trying to explain. By 7000 BCE, villagers in China were mixing rice, honey, fruit and hawthorn into the oldest known fermented drink. And in ancient Egypt, beer was a wage, a meal, a medicine, and an offering to the gods. In this video, we follow that story from the forest floor to the pyramids, and ask a big question: did humans start farming to make bread, or to make beer? 📚 SOURCES Dudley, R. (2014). The Drunken Monkey: Why We Drink and Abuse Alcohol. University of California Press. Carrigan, M. A. et al. (2015). Hominids adapted to metabolize ethanol long before human-directed fermentation. PNAS, 112(2), 458–463. Liu, L. et al. (2018). Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 21, 783–793. Dietrich, O. et al. (2012). The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities: New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey. Antiquity, 86(333), 674–695. McGovern, P. E. et al. (2004). Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China. PNAS, 101(51), 17593–17598. McGovern, P. E. (2009). Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. University of California Press. 💼 Business inquiries: [your email] — DISCLAIMER — This video is made for edutainment. It shouldn't be your only source on these topics or the sole basis for any decision or opinion. Check the sources above, compare them with others, and draw your own conclusions. The goal of this channel is to spark your curiosity and encourage you to explore further. Please drink responsibly. Enjoy the video!