9k-year-old beer remains discovered in China

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Archaeologists in southeastern China have discovered the residue of beer drunk 9,000 years ago. The vessels containing the ancient dregs were   located near two human skeletons, suggesting that mourners may have consumed the brew in honor of the dead, reports Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz.

The researchers found the Neolithic artifacts at the Qiaotou archaeological site, a circular settlement with a mound in the center located in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province.

Several long-necked hu pots discovered in pits at the site contained starches, fossilized plant residue and the remains of mold and yeast, indicating that they once held a fermented alcoholic beverage. Hu pots were used for drinking alcoholic beverages in later periods.

 ScienceAlert’s David Nield writes that archaeologists try to determine the value ancient people placed on particular foods partly by considering how difficult it would have been to collect or produce them. 

“This place might have been a venue for sacrificial and ceremonial events of the ancient residents," Jiang Leping, a researcher with the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said in 2014, when excavation at Qiaotou began.

 

Source - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/remains-9000-year-old-beer-found-china-180978563/