ABOVE: Grains of wheat (pictured) and barley that underwent malting—one of the first steps in beer-making—show a clear thinning in the walls of their honeycomb-like aleurone cells (yellow).
© TUM-WEIHENSTEPHAN; J. HELBING
Five thousand years ago, a pot sat burbling in the corner of a wooden hut perched above Lake Constance in Germany. Researchers such as Marian Berihuete-Azorín, an archaeobotanist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, aren’t sure exactly what was inside the pot, but they have a hunch. At some point, the contents boiled over, leaving behind a scorched, bowl-shaped lump studded with the remnants of ancient malted grains—perhaps early evidence, Berihuete-Azorín says, of beer.
Beer and other kinds of fermented beverages are important in many ancient societies, just like many modern ones.
The study of beer has long been a focus for archaeobotanists interested in the brew’s cultural and historical importance. Some scholars have argued ...
