Cheers
Making a toast to honor a dead friend or relative goes back 9,000 years, CNET reported.
Archaeologists uncovered evidence of toasting the deceased with beer in Neolithic China, one of the earliest known instances of ritual alcohol consumption to honor the dead.
Among a trove of painted ancient pots in southern China, researchers noted that seven of the 20 vessels appeared to be long-necked Hu pots that were used to drink alcohol in later historical periods, according to the Independent. In their paper, lead author Jiang Wang and her colleagues analyzed the surfaces inside the pots and found residue of what appeared to be a very old beer.
Wang explained that the brew was made from fermented “(rice) grain called Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), and unidentified tubers.”
“This ancient beer though would not have been like the IPA (Indian Pale Ale) that we have today,” she added. “Instead, it was likely a slightly fermented and sweet beverage, which was probably cloudy in color.”
Her team noted the process of making the beer was laborious and complicated. At the time, rice domestication and farming were in their early stages and the ancient inhabitants mainly survived on hunting and foraging.
Jiang suggested that the brewing of the beverage was a process of trial and error and that the beer was mainly consumed during rituals such as funerals.
Consequently, the ritualized drinking led to the formation of social bonds between people that would eventually become the foundation of the complex rice farming societies that arrived about 4,000 years later, she speculated.
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