Monday, September 15, 2008

It's something we have a lot of experience with Archaeologist discusses history of booze
Before brew pubs, before wineries, before human ancestors had climbed out of the trees and learned how to walk, there was booze.

And it didn't take long for our ancestors to learn it was good.

Primates of all types seem to have an unrelenting attraction to fermented beverages, which they find in nature in the form of degrading fruit, said Patrick McGovern, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

"It's a natural process," McGovern said. "If you have fruit or honey, and if you dilute it down, there's yeast that will ferment it. All animals appear to be attracted to that. We call it the drunken monkey hypothesis."




UPDATE: See this also.