When and why did humans start consuming drinking alcohol?

With the help of archaeologists and archaeobotanists, Dr Nick Groat finds out when humans first started experimenting with alcoholic substances and why they might have done so.

Guests:

Prof Martin Jones⁠ is a Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Cambridge. He works on archaeobotany and archaeogenetics, in the context of the broader archaeology of food. His current research interests include the spread of farming across Asia, currently in the context of the BUCKBEE project, and recently in the context of the Domestication of Europe project and the FOGLIP project and food sharing in the Upper Palaeolithic, currently in the context of the Moravian Gate project

Prof Li Liu⁠ is the Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor in Chinese Archaeology at the Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University. Her research interests include archaeology of early China (Neolithic and Bronze Age), domestication of plants and animals in China and the development of complex societies and state formation.

Recent publications:

• Identification of 10,000-year-old rice beer at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River valley of China
• Beyond subsistence: Evidence for red rice beer in 8000-year old Neolithic burials, north China

Dr Catherine Longford⁠ is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Biosciences at the University of Sheffield. She specialises in Near Eastern archaeology and ancient agriculture, in particular the Bronze Age Kura-Araxes culture, and agriculture in Neolithic Europe. She has been involved as an archaeobotanist in field projects in Turkey, Georgia, Israel, Bulgaria and the UK at sites dating from the Neolithic to Medieval period.

Prof Tania Valamoti is a Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Her research interests focus on human-plant interactions, anthropogenic landscape and vegetation change and ancient food. She is director of the Departmental lab, LIRA, as well as the PlantCult laboratory at CIRI at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Recent Publications Include:

• Cooking with Plants in Ancient Europe and Beyond; Interdisciplinary approaches to the archaeology of plant foods.

Full transcript available ⁠here.⁠