gts wrote:

>Okay, and if paleo folks ingested alcohol incidentally as a result of eating
>rotten fruit then alcohol was in fact a part of the paleo diet.
>
>No doubt wine came first, before beer which required agriculture.
>
>Probably at some time during the Paleolithic someone noticed pleasant
>intoxicating feelings after eating a big meal of fermenting fruit picked up
>off the forest floor. In the late Paleolithic people then began deliberately
>mixing such fruit in bowls with water to make primitive wine, for use in
>religious rituals. Wine then continued to have religious significance to
>humans even as late as the New Testament.
>
>

Another scenario is this: Perhaps humans were already in the habit of
soaking certain plant foods to make them more edible, such as some
legumes, nuts, etc.  It has always seemed to me that soaking is a paleo
technology, at the same level as hunting, drying meats, etc.   One can
imagine fruits or berries being experimented with, and fermentation
taking place.

I also agree with Andrew's conjecture that cider would have been one of
the earliest alcoholic beverages.  It is ridiculously easy to make cider
in a cool climate.  It needs to be cool so that the yeast-driven
fermentation occurs before bacterial contamination.  So nothern
europeans would have had a better shot at it.

Todd Moody
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