Section 1:
Beer: Beer was not invented, it was discovered. Exactly when the first beer was brewed is unknown but there was almost certainly no beer before 10,000 BCE. The rise of beer was closely associated with the domestication of the cereal grains rom which it is made and the adoption of farming. Beer originated in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To beer drinkers in the Neolithic period, beer’s ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical. This caused them to believe beer was a gift from the Gods. Since it was a gift from the gods, it was presented as a religious offering in religious ceremonies, agricultural fertility rites, and in funerals by the Sumerians and Egyptians. One turning point in history is that beer might have played a role in the adoption of agriculture, according to some anthropologists.
Wine: The origin of wine is lost in prehistory: its invention or discovery was so ancient that it is recorded only indirectly, in myth and legend. Archaeological evidence suggests that wine was first produced during the Neolithic period, between 9000 and 4000 BCE. It was produced in the Zagros Mountains because three factors in that particular area made wine production possible: the presence of the wild Eurasian grape wine, the availability of cereal crops to provide year-round food reserves for wine-making communities, and the invention of pottery around 6000 BCE. Wine became to be seen as a social and religious beverage and started to become fashionable throughout the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. Wine production switched from subsistence to industrial farming and started to be produced specifically as a commercial product, instead of being consumed by the farmer and his dependents. For the Greeks, the kind of wine you drank and its age indicated how cultured you are. In Rome wine started to be a symbol of social differentiation, a mark of