Uncorking the Past Read online

  Long before the arrival of Phrygians and their grog, Anatolia had served as the conduit of cultural and technological influences—including newly domesticated plants and animals, metallurgy, and certainly alcoholic beverages—from western Asia into Europe, going back to the Neolithic period in the sixth millennium B.C. The tradition of a drinking set comprising a bowl, jug, and small beaker or cup had become firmly entrenched by the mid-fourth millennium in the Baden culture (named after a site near Vienna), and examples have been excavated from numerous tombs in the Carpathian Basin of Hungary and along the Danube River. It has been suggested that the bowl and the jug held different beverages, which were mixed and drunk from the drinking cup. If so, this drinking set may be our first glimpse of what was to become a pan-European phenomenon.

  Alcoholic beverages sometimes had a darker side in Baden culture. At the late fourth-millennium B.C. site of Nitriansky Hrádok, in western Slovakia, ten individuals—each kneeling in the same direction with their hands in front of their faces as if in prayer or adoration—had been deposited in a so-called death pit. A single cup and amphora found beneath this gruesome entourage suggested how they had met their fate. Like the servants, women, and horses that accompanied rulers of the “civilized world” in China and Mesopotamia to their graves, this group might have consumed an alcoholic beverage laced with a poisonous herb.

  The Baden drinking culture spread out from central Europe to other parts of the continent during the fourth and third millennia B.C. Beautifully burnished and decorated Funnel Beakers (Trichterbecher) from sites in Germany and Denmark had extremely long necks, which accentuated the importance of the vessels’ contents. Bell Beakers, so named because they are shaped like inverted bells, proliferated at sites in a wide arc from the Czech Republic to Spain, Normandy, and Britain. We are more familiar with the megalithic henge or enclosure monuments of this culture—famously at Stonehenge—that dot the European landscape, but the omnipresent beakers, holding as much as five liters, are another hallmark. A group of ten or more beakers was often deposited in a burial, along with a jug. Again, a final libation and toast to the departed is the most obvious interpretation, even without confirmatory chemical or other evidence.

  Once the European drinking culture was established, it was highly resistant to change, as in Asia and the Near East, and as we will see repeatedly elsewhere. But just how did the Phrygian grog reflect broader European beverage-making traditions, and what impact did it have on native Anatolian customs?

  ANSWERS FROM THE FAR NORTH

  Surprisingly, the earliest evidence of a fermented beverage in Europe north of Greece comes from the islands and mainland of Scotland, more than four thousand kilometers away. Scotland, of course, has always been quite cold, despite its exposure to the Gulf Stream and periodic warming spells since the last Ice Age. This circumstance determined which sugar-rich resources were available to convert into alcoholic beverages. In any case, the Neolithic drink of this region has nothing to do with Scotland’s national beverage today. Scotch whisky (from the Gaelic uisge beatha, “water of life”), which was introduced in the early Middle Ages, owes its much higher alcoholic content to distillation.

  That Scotland has been identified as the earliest site of a fermented beverage in Europe is due to the pioneering efforts of its scientists, in particular palynologists. They were among the first to see the advantages of closely examining residues inside beakers and other beverage containers for pollen and other plant remains. If the same techniques and chemical analysis were applied at sites farther south in Europe, we would likely tap into a treasure trove of fermented beverages to rival those of Scotland.

  The Scottish palynologists have probed dark-colored deposits on the inside of complete beakers from tombs at Ashgrove in Fife, north of Edinburgh, and at the henge and barrow (mound) site of North Mains in Strathallan, a short distance farther north. These sites date to ca. 1750–1500 B.C. From a much earlier period, the mid-fourth millennium B.C., large vats with 100-liter capacities have been analyzed from Tayside, also north of Edinburgh, and at the seaside settlement of Barnhouse on Mainland Island in the Orkneys, off the northern tip of Scotland. Lids have been found in the same vicinity at Tayside and Barnhouse, as well as at the famous Neolithic site of Skara Brea on Mainland Island: if they were used to cover the vats, then anaerobic fermentation of sugar-rich liquids in the vats would have been facilitated.

  On the west coast, the researchers investigated similar residues adhering to the interiors of vessels from henge sites at Machrie Moor on the island of Arran, along the southwestern coast, and at a site on Rhum, an island in the Inner Hebrides group along the central coast. The former again dates to ca. 1750–1500 B.C., whereas the Rhum site, whose grooved-ware pottery is reminiscent of the large vats at Tayside and in the Orkneys, belongs to the late third millennium B.C.

  Very consistent results were obtained from the palynological analyses of the Scottish residues. Honey, deriving mostly from the flowers of the small-leaved lime tree (Tilia cordata) and meadowsweet (Filipendula vulgaris) or heather (Calluna vulgaris), was attested in all the samples. The North Mains beaker and the large vessels from Rhum, Tayside, and the Orkneys also contained cereal pollen. No fruit remains were reported, but because fruits carry minimal pollen compared to nectar from flowers, their presence cannot be excluded. The meadowsweet pollen could have originated directly from the plant rather than from honey. Early herbalists and botanists from the sixteenth century onward describe how the leaves and flowers of medesweete or medewurte (whose name translates as “a pleasing agent or root for mead”) were added to wine, beer, and mead to impart the herb’s distinctive flavor and aroma. The Tayside residues reportedly contained pollen from henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), both of which have mind-altering properties, but a follow-up study failed to confirm this finding.

  Although some of the pollen evidence is open to interpretation, a good case can be made that the cups and large vessels originally contained a fermented beverage—mead, a sweetened ale, or a more complex “Nordic grog” with added herbs. The honey in the Ashgrove beaker had clearly been diluted, as it had spilled out over the moss and leaves covering the upper body of the man buried there. When watered down, the natural yeasts in honey become active and readily ferment it to mead. Acting on this hypothesis and on the evidence from Rhum, William Grant and Sons, the company that owns the Glenfiddich distillery in Speyside (the heartland of modern Scotch production), made a heather-honey mead. At 8 percent alcohol, this one-time re-creation was described as “quite palatable” by those who tried it.

  Taking their cue instead from the North Mains residue, a home brewer, Graham Dineley, and his wife, Merryn, prepared a different re-creation. Their “Strathallan brew” was made from malted barley, with meadowsweet as a flavorant. They used dung-tempered pottery in their experiments, which gave a piquant edge to the beverage. Some who tasted it liked it.

  More chemical and botanical work is needed to determine the range and proportions of ingredients in these beverages. Northerners probably already had the means to ferment sugars from cereals and fruit as well as from honey. Cloudberry and lingonberry, which have been recovered from excavated sites, could also have been pressed into service: they make deliciously sweet cordials today.

  A STRONGER BREW?

  The much-heralded hallucinatory proclivities of Neolithic Europeans are still hypothetical and much in need of confirmatory evidence. As argued by British archaeologists Andrew Sherratt and Richard Rudgley, Nordic grog was often spiked with opium from the latex of poppyseed capsules (Papaver somniferum), marijuana from the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa), henbane, or deadly nightshade. This hypothesis is attractive because the megalithic passage and chambered tombs, which preceded the great henges, are centered around stelae and large basins carved with entoptic shapes and designs—such as spirals, checkerboards, and nested geometrical figures—that are evocative of an altered human consciousness. David Lewis- Wi
lliams and others have interpreted the Neolithic tomb artwork as a recreation of the deeply mysterious atmosphere of the painted Palaeolithic caves where otherworldly ceremonies were likely carried out (see chapter 1). At Barclodiad y Gawres, on the island of Anglesey in Wales, the central chamber yielded a strange concoction containing the remains of a frog, two species of toad, a snake, a fish, a shrew, and a rabbit, which had been poured over a hearth and intentionally covered with stones, earth, and shells. Could this be the Neolithic equivalent of a magical brew like the one the witches stirred up in their cauldron in Macbeth, with the eye of a newt, an adder’s tongue, and other delicacies?

  We cannot reject this hypothesis out of hand, as we have already seen how opium and marijuana were probably used in preparing a special ceremonial beverage around 2000 B.C. in Turkmenistan, with roots deeper in the past. The incipient Baden drinking culture was in touch with developments on the western Eurasian steppes and might well have ushered into Europe the delights (and dangers) of these drugs. We also know from later literary records that opium was used medicinally to alleviate pain in Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

  Poppyseeds are extremely well represented at sites throughout central and southern Europe from the Neolithic period onward. By the Iron Age they had appeared in Britain and Poland. Although the seeds themselves are not hallucinogenic but rather the source of a flammable oil and condiment, they suggest the presence of the more degradable seed capsule, which yields the drug. At Cueva de los Murciélagos (the Bat Cave), in Granada in southern Spain, dated to about 4200 B.C., intact seed capsules were found inside esparto grass bags, reminding one of the ephedra sewn into the hems of the Loulan mummy wrappings (see chapter 4).

  Cannabis seeds, too, have been recovered from sites throughout Europe beginning in the Neolithic period. Parts of the plant produce a versatile fiber and seed oil; European peoples might also easily have learned how to infuse the plant’s leaves or flowers, rich in the hallucinogenic alkaloid, into an alcoholic beverage. Similarly, so-called vase supports, polypod braziers, and “pipe stems” from sites throughout the continent would have been convenient vehicles for smoking and inhaling the drug, as the ancient Scythians did inside their tents (see chapter 4). Carbonized hemp seeds have been found inside some of these artifacts, probably the detritus left behind after the leaves and flowers had been burned. If marijuana was already an accepted European drug, then the much later acceptance of hops (Humulus lupulus), also in the cannabinoid family and an important additive in beer, might be viewed as a natural development.

  The hard evidence for the consumption of such mind-altering drugs in an alcoholic potion remains elusive, however. Researchers at the University of Barcelona have made some headway by applying a variety of techniques—archaeobotanical, chemical, and phytolithic (based on microscopic identification of characteristic silica accretions in plants)—to pinpoint additives such as mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) in a barley and emmer-wheat brew, sometimes supplemented with honey or acorn flour. The beverage remains were found inside vats holding 80 to 120 liters, jars, and smaller drinking vessels, including beakers. They come from several sites around Barcelona (the caves of Can Sadurní, Genó, Cova del Calvari, and Loma de la Tejería) and in central Spain (Valle de Ambrona and La Meseta Sur), dating between ca. 5000 B.C. and the beginning of the Christian era.

  The Barcelona researchers, Jose Luis Maya, Joan Carles Matamala, and Jordi Juan-Tresserras, went on to re-create the 5,100-year-old Genó beverage with the help of the Spanish-based San Miguel brewery. Emmer wheat, from the last remaining field in Asturias in northern Spain, and barley were brewed with pure water from the Pyrenees in a handmade pottery vessel, like the ancient jar with the residue. Native rosemary, thyme, and mint enhanced the flavor and served as preservatives. A first batch of the thick, dark, gruelly liquid, with an 8 percent alcohol content, was quickly consumed—all four hundred bottles—before it had a chance to go flat. Another batch was prepared by less exacting methods for the first International Congress on Beer in Prehistory and Antiquity, held in Barcelona in 2004. I had the chance to taste the brew at the Bacchanalian-like closing celebration of the conference; unfortunately, its zesty taste was marred by the brew’s having turned slightly.

  If hard evidence is notably deficient for the proposed hallucinogenic beverages, a recent suggestion from two Irish archaeologists, Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, is even more mind-boggling. They argue that the thousands of curious horseshoe-shaped features (Gaelic fulacht fiadh, “wild pit”) scattered throughout Ireland were used to produce the earliest Irish beer. They envision that the long central troughs of the fulachta fiadh, which date from Neolithic times down to around 500 B.C., were filled with malted grain and water and the resulting mixture heated or mashed with red-hot stones to break down the starches into sugar. Unfortunately, little grain, and none that has been identified as malted or mashed, has ever been recovered from the sites. More common are animal bones, which some archaeologists have taken as signs that the fire-cracked stones were used to boil up meat instead (early corned beef, perhaps?).

  As Quinn and Moore explained to me at a bar on the Rambla boulevard of Barcelona, where we were attending the beer congress, they hit on their idea one morning while nursing hangovers from the night before. If other foods were cooked with hot rocks in the Neolithic, why couldn’t beer be made the same way? This tradition survives in the modern world: small breweries in Austria and Bavaria (at Marktoberdorf) make their beer with hot rocks and call it Steinbier. A New World version was concocted at the Brimstone Brewing Company in Baltimore, where a special Stone Beer was produced until 1998 by dropping heated diabase rocks from a forklift into the wort, generating impressive, billowing clouds of steam. After twenty minutes in the wort kettle, the rocks were removed and put aside in a freezer; they were added back in the secondary fermentation to give a caramelly finish to the beer. Sadly, when the brewery was sold, the new owners decided to drop the labor-intensive brewing method; however, Flaming Stone Beer, made by Boscos brewpubs in Tennessee and Arkansas, carries on the tradition in the United States.

  Quinn and Moore were not to be deterred by the absence of spent grain in the fulachta fiadh that would have provided confirmation of their idea. They secured a wooden trough of the approximate dimensions of the ancient feature, filled it with water and barley, and dropped in heated stones until they had a sweet wort. A bouquet garni of unidentified herbs was suspended in the liquid as a substitute for hops. After transferring the brew to plastic carboys and adding yeast, they had a “Neolithic” brew within three days. It was a far cry from Guinness, but a group of volunteers concurred that it tasted like a traditional Irish ale.

  Archaeologists have long believed that Neolithic Britain stood apart from the revolution in cereal production in continental Europe that led to the building of larger, permanent settlements there. The peoples of Britain seemed content to continue their nomadic ways, with only the occasional construction of a megalithic tomb or henge. A major reassessment of this view occurred when a large building, first detected in aerial photographs, was excavated at Balbridie, inland from Aberdeen, on the eastern coast of Scotland and only about 150 kilometers from where the Ashgrove and North Mains beakers were found. The Balbridie timber building, dating to ca. 3900–3500 B.C., was divided into partitions and yielded masses of barley, emmer and bread wheat, and linseed.

  In the last decade, many more such Neolithic “granaries” have been found in England (at Lismore Fields in Derbyshire and White Horse Stone in Kent), Scotland (at Callander in Perthshire), and Ireland (at Tankardstown in Limerick). Because some of these buildings include hearths and open floor spaces, they could have served as combination storage and malting facilities for beer making. The final verdict about their function—theories range from cult installations to simple residential quarters—is still out.

  WHERE WAS THE SUGAR?

  Compared to their southern neighbors, people in northern Europe had few options for obtaining simple sugars. Ho
ney, which was the most obvious source, was collected wild from the forests during the fall. Marvelous Mesolithic and Neolithic rock drawings in eastern Spain show bee hunters scaling sheer cliffs to procure the precious commodity.

  Beekeeping was probably not practiced until relatively late in Europe, as shown by a log hive from Gristede and two beech-tree examples pulled from peat bogs near Oldenburg in northern Germany, dated to the first century A.D. Another tree-trunk hive of about the same date was taken out of the Oder River in Poland. It is quite possible, however, that skeps, woven baskets with a hole for the bees to enter and exit, were used for beekeeping as early as the Neolithic period, especially in less heavily wooded areas of western Europe. Preserved baskets of suitable types have been recovered from Neolithic Swiss lake settlements and other sites in Spain and southwest Germany.

  Various cereals, which had originated from the Near East, could be sprouted and their starches converted into sugar. Apples, cherries, cowberries, cranberries, lingonberries, and even cloudberries in the far north, were additional, albeit somewhat limited, sources of sugar. An added bonus of apples was that their skins harbor yeast, which can initiate fermentation.

  The burnt-out impressions of wild grape (Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris) occur on Neolithic pottery sherds from sites in southern Sweden, implying that the plant grew locally and was exploited during a warmer period around 2000 B.C. Grape pollen from about the same period has been reported from a site in Denmark, and, most remarkably but probably intrusive, a single pip of the domesticated grape was recovered from a causewayed enclosure in Dorset in southern England. Although some wild grapes might have made their way into a Nordic grog here and there, no grape remains or pollen have yet been found inside an early pottery vessel from northern Europe.