11,000-Year-Old Beer Breweries Discovered

That 3,000-year-old wine has got nothing on this; archaeologists have discovered 11,000-year-old beer-brewing troughs at a feasting site in Turkey, called Göbekli Tepe.

The findings, published in the journal Antiquity, suggest that beer brewing may have spurred community bonding, as another primitive beer brewery was also discovered near an ancient feasting site in Cyprus.

Live Science reports that some researchers believe beer was invented some 11,500 years ago, leading to the cultivation of grains. Whether beer or bread caused the cultivation of grains is a debate that's been around since the 1950s, archeologist LIndy Crewe told Live Science.

In fact, researchers suggest that beer was reserved for important cultural feasts, which, along with the help of alcohol, allowed community bonding and motivated citizens to continue large-scale projects.

"Production and consumption of alcoholic beverages is an important factor in feasts facilitating the cohesion of social groups, and in the case of Göbekli Tepe, in organizing collective work," Oliver Dietrich, co-author of the Antiquity study, wrote in an email. Sounds like modern day work politics to us.