World’s oldest brewery discovered in a cave in Israel

The ritual of celebrating with beer might be older than we thought.

Archaeologists discovered what they’re calling a ‘brewery’ in a cave in the modern-day northern Israeli city of Haifa. Source: Dani Nadel, University of Haifa

13,000 years ago, humans were figuring out how to domesticate sheep, watching on as the last glaciers from the Ice Age receded, and, apparently, brewing beer. 

Last week, a team of archaeologists discovered what they’re calling a ‘brewery’ in a cave in the modern-day northern Israeli city of Haifa. Tests on residue found in small stone mortars at the site revealed traces of 13,000-year-old beer, wheat and barley, and indicate a kind of fermentation process taking place over a period of time.

Archaeologists discovered what they’re calling a ‘brewery’ in a cave in the modern-day northern Israeli city of Haifa. Source: Dani Nadel, University of Haifa

“If we’re right, this is the earliest testament in the world to alcohol production of any kind,” Dani Nadel, an archaeology professor at the University of Haifa told AFP.

The site once served as a graveyard for the Natufian people, a hunter-gatherer society living throughout what we know as the Middle East. Not unlike today’s beer drinkers, our forebears may have linked alcohol with ritual, ceremony and socialising. Prehistoric humans are just like us, clearly.

Of course, prehistoric beer didn’t exactly resemble the hoppy brew we’re familiar with today. According to Jiajing Wang, co-author of the research study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Natufian beer was a “multi-ingredient concoction like porridge or think gruel”. It was likely less alcoholic than today’s beer. A quick trip to any microbrewery will reveal just how far we’ve come.

If we’re right, this is the earliest testament in the world to alcohol production of any kind.

Researchers have previously posited the discovery of beer around 5000 years ago was a happy accident, involving someone brave enough to sip the side product of making bread. But the discovery in Israel indicates beer was produced independently of bread, and signifies the drink's cultural importance.

Not unlike today’s beer drinkers, our forebears may have linked alcohol with ritual, ceremony and socialising. Source: Dani Nadel, University of Haifa

“Fermented and alcoholic beverages played a pivotal role in feastings and social events in past agricultural and urban societies across the globe, but the origins of the sophisticated relevant technologies remain elusive,” the research paper reads. “It has long been speculated that the thirst for beer may have been the stimulus behind cereal domestication, which led to a major social-technological change in human history.”

As drinkers of 76 million litres of beer each year, perhaps Australians have more in common with ancient Natufians than we realise.