According to Homer Simpson, beer is the cause of, and the solution to, all of life’s problems. Some scientists one-up Homer and claim that beer may be the origin of civilization.
As any world-history student can tell you, the first civilizations emerged along the great river valleys of the world: the Tigris and Euphrates, the Ganges and Indus, the Yangtze and Yellow.
River valleys provided the fertile soils needed to grow the grains that humans were busy domesticating. The assumption had long been that it was the pursuit of stable food supplies that drove us to forego our hunter-gatherer lifestyles and cultivate those grains along the rivers. But some scientists now say it wasn’t hunger, but thirst, that sparked civilization.
- Outside
