Sometime in the Neolithic age, people started transitioning from a nomadic existence into living in permanent villages. Sounds sensible to modern ears. After all, who would want to live constantly on the move when you could just settle down? But there’s a problem. Research into these very early villages, and the bones of those who lived in them, suggests they had to work considerably harder, lived shorter lives, and were more prone to malnutrition and starvation than their nomadic kin. And this wasn't a short transition period. It took many generations for dwellers of permanent settlements to begin to show any particular advantages over their nomadic kin. Why would someone choose that kind of life when the other remained available?

One possible reason which sounds whimsical, but I find plausible – they did it for the beer.

It has been established that beer making goes all the way back to the same period we’re discussing. Here’s something from an old article from the Economist discussing it:

In the 1950s Jonathan Sauer, an American botanist, suggested that the original motivation for domesticating cereal crops (and thus switching from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle) might have been to make beer, rather than bread. The question of whether beer or bread came first has been debated ever since.

Supporters of Sauer's idea have pointed out that many of the first cereals to be farmed were unsuitable for baking without tiresome preparation, but were suitable for brewing. Beer, they suggest, may have emerged in an attempt to make wild barley edible by mixing it with water and fruit. The thick beer produced in this way would be just as nutritious as bread, in addition to being slightly alcoholic.

Sumerian documents lend credence to this idea. For although Sumerian beer was made using bappir, a form of bread that could be stored for long periods, it seems that bappir was consumed only when no other food was available. In other words, its primary function may have been to store the raw materials for making beer in a convenient form.

Nomadic peoples could have also learned to make beer this way from wild grain. But it would not have been something available year round. It would have been at best a seasonal treat.

So why stop a life of nomadic plenty for a riskier life of toil? Perhaps the answer is as simple as a love of beer.

One can easily imagine a conversation at the dawn of civilization along these lines…

Thag: What do you mean you’re not migrating to follow the wooly mammoth with the rest of the tribe?!

Grog: I think I’m just going to stay here, put up a hut and make some more beer. Have fun without me.

Thag: Won’t you miss the thrill of the hunt?! The feast of mammoth flesh around an open fire?! The plentiful fruits of that place we call “the place with all the fruit” we migrate to in the summer?! The fresh fish we catch with nets along the seashore?

Grog: Will there be any beer there?

Thag: Well... no, not really.

Grog. Then I'm staying here.

And from such noble pioneers emerged civilization itself. So when you're kicking back having a brewski on the deck this weekend, have a little extra respect for our good friend beer.