Out of Africa

[ken_schramm]

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Why is mead the prototypical fermented beverage? Why is honey archaeo-chemically evident in every early fermentation relic that has been analyzed? Why, logically, does mead pre-date beer or wine? Because knowledge of honey fermentation came out of Africa with the original out-migration, and grapes and enzymatically powerful grains are not native to the African continent. The thing they first knew how to ferment was honey.

It stands to reason; if you analyze the potential two-path out migration, honey shows up in Jiahu (theorized South Red Sea group) , just like it shows up in Godin Tepe/Midas Tomb (Northern/Sinai group) shards.

That could potentially put the advent of human controlled fermentation in the Archeulean, possibly predating Homo Sapiens.

Ken

 

[wayneb]

Intriguing theory, Ken. Now we need some archaeological evidence from somewhere in Africa that predates Jiahu, showing honey residues in a beverage storage container. I wonder if such a thing could have survived?

That would finally allow us some credibility when we "claim" that mead is the oldest fermented human beverage.

 

[wildoates]

The likely earliest containers don't last in archeological sites very well--skins and bladders and the like. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some late Pleistocene meadmaking going on, but with no pottery vessels that date back that far, it's going to be difficult to find evidence of it.

 

[ken_schramm]

Next crazy theory: the way to prove alcohol consumption will be in some bio-chemical marker that alcohol use leaves in the bones of humans. If we can figure out what marker chemical is truly positive for alcohol consumption, and then assay it out from remains of Erectus, possibly, and/or early Sapiens, we could really start to understand the human history with fermentation.

Even wilder would be to begin to assay soil samples from latrine areas of ancient cave sites to find out if we can find traces of metabolized alcohol markers (Formaldehyde?).

I always wanted to be an archaeologist.

Ken

 

[akueck]

I always wanted to be an archaeologist.

Ken

Perhaps a "paleofermentologist"?

You could try to trace the genes that code for alcohol dehydrogenase. Presumably there would be a big spike in the prevalence of these genes in populations that drank a lot, with less before the advent of purposeful mead/beer/wine brewing.

 

[wildoates]

Hmmm, I don't know if alcohol metabolism would leave the kind of markers in tissue or feces that would show up down the line. Given that it's only hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, unless it picks up some heavier metal that can be traced in tissue or digestive leavings...but I don't recall that it does. My organic chemistry is extremely sketchy, but I'm pretty sure the products of alcohol metabolism are various simpler compounds of those elements. I'm sure someone with more recent memories of O-chem can correct me if I'm wrong, but generally I think that the sort of markers that can be found years later are of the heavier metal sort.

I don't think we'd want those heavier elements in our mead anyway.

As far as archeology is concerned, I hear you. I very much enjoyed it when I did it, and it's a grand way to make a living--if you can make a living at it, which is not easy. Having run out of money to finish my PhD, I am no longer doing archeology, but teaching high school science--and totally forgetting any higher-level science I ever knew. I comfort myself with the sure knowledge that I'm doing something vitally important to society, and one more university professor will not be missed, right?

Right? 8)

I quite liked your book, by the way...I've read the whole thing three times, and pored over the especially good bits (like the types of honey--I want to taste them all!) repeatedly. Thanks for your effort to put out a fine piece of work.

 

[wayneb]

I always wanted to be an archaeologist.

Ken

I could tell!

 

[ken_schramm]

Hi Wildoates,

Thanks for the kind comments on the book. It's really good to hear that you enjoyed it.

I recall looking at this a few months ago, and finding stuff like this, and this.

Much of it indicated changes in bone due to the altered function of the liver.

I'm no archaeochemist, but I was wondering if "high normal or elevated levels of parathyroid hormone as indicated both by radioimmunoassay..." might be something that could be detected after the fact (many thousands of years after the fact, in fact). But that's wishful thinking. I had some correspondence with Dr. Patrick McGovern about it. He's the archaeochemist from U Penn who was involved in Godin Tepe and Jiahu.

The unique spinal fractures and bone density patterns might also be very cool things to look for. I wonder if those are the kinds of things that paleontologists are actively checking for on paleolithic remains, and if so, would they be correlating them with ETOH use. It would sure be an interesting conversation: "uh, Dr. Leakey, I was kind of wondering, uh, and sort of hoping, maybe possibly, if you could have a look for spinal fractures to see when we started to become alcoholics. Please."

Ken

 

[wildoates]

Interesting stuff, and I can pretty much guarantee Maeve would go for that sort of research. She's a good sport. I don't know about her specifically (I only met her once), but most of the archeologists/paleontologists of my former acquaintance quite enjoy their tipple and would get a good chuckle out of the audacity of the question at least.

Might be kind of hard getting funded for it, though. Heh heh heh

But you know, it's a valid question--when did people first begin to ferment sugars on purpose? Your scenario of honey in the water bag is quite likely, although the empiricist in me grumbles that evidence for it will likely never be found. But it had to change things socially, right? And that's interesting.

 

[afdoty]

So maybe there’s a real genetic “pre-disposition” for the differences in people …… wine people, beer people, liquor people and mead people?

 

[ken_schramm]

I'm not one for saying never. There'll be all kinds of things we figure out in the future, if we get the chance. At some point, we'll find a bog person that is hundreds of thousands of years old. Maybe one with a water sack.

 

[Oskaar]

I'm not one for saying never. There'll be all kinds of things we figure out in the future, if we get the chance. At some point, we'll find a bog person that is hundreds of thousands of years old. Maybe one with a water sack.

I'm guessing that or a mummified desert nomad with an equally well preserved set of utensils. The stomach contents of many mummies have been studied and documented pretty well so I'm guessing that somewhere along the way we'll learn something from the migration paths.

 

[afdoty]

I'm not one for saying never. There'll be all kinds of things we figure out in the future, if we get the chance. At some point, we'll find a bog person that is hundreds of thousands of years old. Maybe one with a water sack.

They have found such mummies. Your conversation reminded me of something. A number of naturally preserved mummies were found in the Gobi Desert. The interesting thing about them was that they all appear to have Caucasian features, not Chinese. They date back to 4000 years ago. Also their language was similar to Celtic.

Anyway, I’ve attached to the link to an article about the mummies.

http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/mummies.html

 

[Oskaar]

They have found such mummies. Your conversation reminded me of something. A number of naturally preserved mummies were found in the Gobi Desert. The interesting thing about them was that they all appear to have Caucasian features, not Chinese. They date back to 4000 years ago. Also their language was similar to Celtic.

Anyway, I’ve attached to the link to an article about the mummies.

http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/mummies.html

Yeah, actually some of them had red hair as I remember.

 

[ken_schramm]

"There never was a time, Dr Mair said, "when people were not travelling back and forth across the whole of Eurasia." "

Well, there may have been a time before the diaspora from Africa, but since then, I'm with the good doctor. Have look at this, and tell me there wasn't a common heritage behind these myths.

 

[Oskaar]

"There never was a time, Dr Mair said, "when people were not travelling back and forth across the whole of Eurasia." "

Well, there may have been a time before the diaspora from Africa, but since then, I'm with the good doctor. Have look at this, and tell me there wasn't a common heritage behind these myths.

Much of Greek mythos was shared with the different pantheons in Asia Minor as well. It makes sense to me that as cultures met and developed within the realm of influence of more socially and culturally advanced people that the myths and legends would gradually work their way into the less developed societal structure and be adapted or adopted to fit their own. I'll have to dig for that reference but I think it was either a professor at Penn State that had a couple of snippets that I ran across a few years back.

Here's a link to that red haired mummy (Cherchen Man) that I was referencing earlier. National Geographic did a pretty interesting documentary on that where they followed the horse nomads from different regions and did some genetic testing to find European DNA in some of the Asian nomads that had decidedly European (fair skin, blonde, etc.) features. Interesting stuff.

http://www.philipcoppens.com/turim_mummies.html

 

[Teufelhund]

ken_schramm wrote:>>>> Why is mead the prototypical fermented beverage? Why is honey archaeo-chemically evident in every early fermentation relic that has been analyzed? Why, logically, does mead pre-date beer or wine?

Actually, doesn't beer pre-date mead discoveries? I've read that beer production was very pronounced in Egypt, Summeria and Northern Africa before the introduction of mead.

>>>>Because knowledge of honey fermentation came out of Africa with the original out-migration,

NORTHERN Africa migration. There has been little of substance from the sub-Saharan natives.

>>> The thing they first knew how to ferment was honey.

http://www.winemakingbeerbrewing.com/history/history-of-beer-brewing
"Beer is said to be the oldest brewed beverage in human history. Traces of the earliest beer brewing activities date back to as early as the sixth millennium B.C. Ancient Iran and Egypt were regarded as the earliest beer producers, followed by Babylon, ancient Rome, and ancient Greece". Am I incorrect on this?

>>>>>It stands to reason; if you analyze the potential two-path out migration,

Would you explain this theory? Nothing showed up on a Google.

>>>>honey shows up in Jiahu (theorized South Red Sea group) , just like it shows up in Godin Tepe/Midas Tomb (Northern/Sinai group) shards.

Both areas are more conducive to honey bee propagation, say as opposed to Saharah desert climates, lack of flowering vegetation, etc...?

 

[Teufelhund]

Moderated by PBakulic

 

[wayneb]

ken_schramm wrote:>>>> Why is mead the prototypical fermented beverage? Why is honey archaeo-chemically evident in every early fermentation relic that has been analyzed? Why, logically, does mead pre-date beer or wine?

Actually, doesn't beer pre-date mead discoveries? I've read that beer production was very pronounced in Egypt, Summeria and Northern Africa before the introduction of mead.

Actually, the remains of a fermented beverage discovered at Jiahu, China, were recently dated to around 7,000 BC (9,000+ years ago), and are the oldest alcoholic beverage remains so far discovered. The ingredients were mass spectrometer analyzed and found to include honey, rice and hawthorn berries and/or grapes. So that suggests a beverage closer to mead than to beer was in existence in neolithic Asia long before the Egyptian brewing records were laid down.

 

[ken_schramm]

Thanks, Wayne. Good points.

I'm sorry, ssteufelhund, but that White History stuff is some seriously flawed material. One could even think Arthur Kemp was flaming, lunatic, bat-guano crazy, virtually entirely unconnected to reality as we know it. In fact, that's exactly what I think. You might want to start using Google Scholar. Start here.

If you want to stay at the plebeian level looking at the two path out-migration, try this. Stephen Oppenheimer has real credentials. Please, look him up.

Turns out, we're all sub-Saharan. The sub-Saharan natives who crossed at the horn are the ones eating our lunch in the car market. Apis mellifera scutellata is also sub-Saharan, as are A.m. adansonii, unicolor and capensis. They all have spectacular per-colony productivity, which is why we Europeans brought A.m. scutellata to South America, and promptly shot ourselves in the foot.

Pete; interesting stuff, but Coppens seems to be a little off-center. It is very apparent that we were all over. Humans just seem to love road trips.