Beer
Residues in stone vats suggest brewing at Gobekli Tepe, possibly before bread was a staple.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 5.7 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 1 thousand years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Large limestone basins at Gobekli Tepe carry oxalate residues consistent with a wheat-based fermented drink, and brewing installations are known from Natufian Raqefet Cave earlier still. This feeds a long-standing and genuinely serious hypothesis — that cereals were first cultivated for drink rather than bread, since beer is calorie-dense, safer than water, and central to feasting. The evidence is suggestive rather than decisive, and the debate is open.