Inebriation and the early state: Beer and the politics of affect in Mesopotamia

Paulette, Tate

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101330

“…In contrast, at the transition to more politically organised societies such as "complex chiefdoms" and "states", its role was rather negligible. This is consistent with anthropological observations showing that alcohol consumption and associated feasting took place primarily at the communal level 44 , albeit massive, state-sponsored feasting events are also known, for example, from the Inca Empire 5 or ancient Mesopotamia 7 .…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…

The size and complexity of human societies increased dramatically over the Holocene. Researchers have proposed a variety of potential drivers of this major transition [1][2][3][4] , including our predilection for alcoholic beverages [5][6][7] . This "drunk" hypothesis argues that drinking alcohol facilitated the rise of complex societies because it promotes social bonding and enhances human creativity 5 .

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we focus on one particular aspect of the theory -that consumption of low-alcohol fermented beverages played a signi cant role in promoting large-scale cooperation and the development of complex hierarchical societies 5,7 . We test this claim using Bayesian data analysis and a global sample of 186 largely non-industrial societies (Standard Cross-Cultural Sample; SCCS) 8 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Did alcohol facilitate the evolution of complex societies?

Hrnčíř,

Chira,

Gray

2024

Preprint

0

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The size and complexity of human societies increased dramatically over the Holocene. Researchers have proposed a variety of potential drivers of this major transition1–4, including our predilection for alcoholic beverages5–7. This "drunk" hypothesis argues that drinking alcohol facilitated the rise of complex societies because it promotes social bonding and enhances human creativity5. However, systematic cross-cultural evidence for the claim is lacking. Here we test this hypothesis with a global sample of 186 largely non-industrial societies8. We find a positive (albeit modest) relationship between the presence of indigenous alcoholic beverages and the level of political complexity, even after controlling for several potential confounders, including common ancestry, spatial proximity, environmental productivity and agricultural intensity. Furthermore, we find that the largest effect of alcohol on political complexity is in less integrated societies, such as “acephalous” societies and “simple chiefdoms”. Our results support the idea that group-level social benefits of alcohol tended to outweigh its disruptive effects, at least in the case of traditional low-alcohol beverages, and thus positively contributed to the evolution of human societies.

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“…These behaviours aren't unique to ancient China either. We see evidence for the role of feasting and drinking in the promotion of cooperation in a number of cultures, for example, Andean Peru (Williams & Nash, 2021), Mesopotamia (Paulette, 2021), and Egypt (Wang, Friedman, & Baba, 2021) (for a review see Dietler, 2006). Similar practices can also be found in modern day rural Southwest China, where individuals drink alcohol from a communal zajiu vessel as part of the guozhuang ritual dance (Li, 2011;Liu, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Fitouchi

¹

,

André²,

Baumard³

2022

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Why do many human societies morally condemn apparently victimless and pleasurable behaviors, such as lust, gluttony, drinking, drugs, gambling, or even music and dance? Why do they morally praise temperance, chastity, sobriety, decency, and piety? While this puritanical morality often appears as an exception to the cooperative function of moral cognition, we propose that it stems, like other moral concerns, from moral judgements targeting cooperative challenges. Specifically, we propose that it consists of preemptive moralizations of behaviors perceived as risk factors for uncooperative self-control failures, impeding people's ability to resist the short-term temptations naturally conflicting with cooperative motivations.

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“…These behaviours aren't unique to ancient China either. We see evidence for the role of feasting and drinking in the promotion of cooperation in a number of cultures, for example, Andean Peru (Williams & Nash, 2021), Mesopotamia (Paulette, 2021), and Egypt (Wang, Friedman, & Baba, 2021) (for a review see Dietler, 2006). Similar practices can also be found in modern day rural Southwest China, where individuals drink alcohol from a communal zajiu vessel as part of the guozhuang ritual dance (Li, 2011; Liu, 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%