History With Gusto

Many a beery bull session has ended in toasts asserting that this is what civilized life is all about. The theory does not always survive morning light. But Anthropologist Solomon Katz believes civilization may indeed have begun with the first beer. Ten thousand years ago, man the hunter-gatherer settled down to civilized crop raising. Just why has never been clear, however. Katz, 47, who hoists a civilizing glass or two himself, argues in the University of Pennsylvania's anthropology magazine that one key was the accidental fermenting of a beer from cereal grains.

This new brew, says Katz, not only tasted great but was very filling; it was almost equal to animal protein for nutrition. Furthermore, alcoholic intoxicants have "a very special significance in every society," he notes. All these pluses "provided the extra motivation to make sure they had the seeds around as a regular source of this special food."

Some scholars see more foam than substance in Katz's notion. "Hunters and gatherers did not have the pottery to put stuff in to soak," objects Anthropology Curator Robert Carneiro of the American Museum of Natural History. Other academics point out that the theory has been suggested before and remains speculative. But Katz claims no proprietary insight. "We all know nothing is so simple as a single cause," he observes. Having a tall cool one, however, "is maybe a more important part of the process toward domestication than we had previously thought."