For serving drinks or food, these painted pottery vessels (from Qiaotou platform mund) can be used for serving drinks. Credit: Jiajing Wang.
Long-standing social and cultural functions of alcohol have been recognized in ancient societies. New evidence suggests that beer was consumed in southern China as a part of a ritual to honour the dead 9,000 years ago. These findings were based on the analysis of ancient pots from Qiaotou's burial site. This makes Qiaotou one of the most important sites for early beer drinking. These results were published in PLOS ONE.
Based on ongoing excavations at Qiaotou, the ancient pots were found in an 80 m x 50m wide platform mound. It was approximately 1.5-2 meters deep and 10-15 m wide. The site did not contain any residential structures. Two human skeletons were found in the mound, along with multiple pottery pits containing high-quality pottery vessels. Many of these vessels were complete. Some of the pottery vessels were decorated with abstract designs and white slip was used to paint them. These artifacts may be some of the earliest known examples of painted pottery anywhere in the world, according to the study. This type of pottery has never been found in any other site dating back to that time.
The research team examined different types of pottery from Qiaotou. They were all of different sizes. Some pottery vessels were smaller than others and comparable in size to modern drinking vessels and those from other parts of the globe. The pots can be held in one hand, much like a cup. Storage vessels are larger. Their analysis revealed that seven of the 20 vessels were Hu pots with long necks. These were known to have been used in later periods to consume alcohol.
One of the archaic features at Qiaotou's platform mound is human burial 1. (M44). Credit: Leping Jiang.
The research team analysed microfossil remnants starch, phytolith, and fungi to confirm that the vessels were intended for alcohol consumption. These residues were compared to control samples taken from the soil around the vessels.
The microbotanical (starch grains and phytoliths) as well as microbial (mold, yeast) residues found in the pots were consistent with beer fermentation residues. These residues are not naturally found in soil or other artifacts unless they have contained alcohol.
"Through a residue assessment of pots from Qiaotou our results showed that the pottery vessels were used for beer storage, which is in its broadest sense, a fermented beverage made from rice (Oryza.sp.). Jiajing Wang is an assistant professor at Dartmouth in anthropology. "This ancient beer would have been different from the IPA we have today. It was more likely that it was a sweet and slightly fermented beverage, probably with a cloudy color.
Map of Qiaotou. Credit: PLOS ONE.
Results also revealed that the residue of the pots contained phytoliths from rice husks, and other plants. These may have been added as a fermentation agent to the beer.
The Yangtze River Valley in southern China is now known as the country's rice capital. However, domestication of rice took place gradually between 10,000 to 6,000 years ago. So, 9,000 years ago rice was still in its early stages of domestication. Most communities at that time were hunter-gatherers and relied on foraging. According to the study, beer at Qiaotou was likely a ritually important drink/beverage, since rice processing and harvesting were labor-intensive.
A residue analysis of the pots revealed that there were traces of mold which had been used in the beermaking process. The mold found in Qiaotou's pots was very similar to that found in koji, which can be used to ferment sake and other rice beverages in East Asia. These results are older than earlier research that found mold was used in fermentation processes in China 8,000 years ago.
Long-necked Hu vessel. Credit: Leping Jiang.
Beer can be defined as any fermented beverage that is made from crops. It goes through two stages of transformation. Enzymes convert starch into sugar (saccharification) in the first phase. The yeasts transform sugar into alcohol (saccharification) and other states such as carbon dioxide (fermentation). As the researchers explain in the study, mold acts kind of like an agent for both processes, by serving as a saccharification-fermentation starter.
Wang says that we don't know how the mold was created 9,000 years ago. However, fermentation can occur naturally. "If someone had leftover rice, and the grains turned moldy, it is possible that they noticed that the grains became sweeter with age. Although people might not have been able to identify the biochemistry of moldy grains, they likely observed and used it through trial-and-error.
The researchers concluded that beer pots were used in ritualistic ceremonies related to the burial of the deceased, as Qiaotou's pottery was found close to these burials. The researchers speculate that ritualized drinking was an integral part of forging social relations and cooperation that served as a precursor in complex rice farming societies that developed 4,000 years later.
Further Neolithic pottery sherds originating from China show alcoholic beverage production techniques
