title: Revealing a 5,000-y-old beer recipe in China.
abstract: The pottery vessels from the Mijiaya site reveal, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of in situ beer making in China, based on the analyses of starch, phytolith, and chemical residues. Our data reveal a surprising beer recipe in which broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), and tubers were fermented together. The results indicate that people in China established advanced beer-brewing technology by using specialized tools and creating favorable fermentation conditions around 5,000 y ago. Our findings imply that early beer making may have motivated the initial translocation of barley from the Western Eurasia into the Central Plain of China before the crop became a part of agricultural subsistence in the region 3,000 y later.
authors.affiliation: Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; jiajingw@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Jiajing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602;
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ball
authors.affiliation: Zhejiang Research Institute of Chemical Industry, 310006 Hangzhou, China;
authors.forename: Linjie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Yuanqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, 710054 Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Fulai
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xing
mesh_terms: D001515:Beer / Q000266:history*; D002681:China; D002523:Edible Grain; D049690:History, Ancient; D019684:Magnoliopsida; D035281:Plant Tubers
keywords: Yangshao period; alcohol; archaeological chemistry; phytolith analysis; starch analysis