[Stones] bronze age ale

[Ric]

Hi,

i guess the NW European cereal yield in the Late
Bronze Age might have been approaching practical
levels of 'milled barley' to kick-start the brewing
industry, but we seem to have developed a
stereo-typical image of the prehistoric farmer who
just turned up one day, and created - as if by magic -
 rolling vistas of endless cereals rippling in the
breeze?

the truth is more likely that agriculture was a
lengthy stop-start process of experimentation,
presumably originally subservient to animal husbandry
(esp. cattle), and pretty much running parallel to
hunter-gatherer modes of subsistence for many
generations if not many hundreds of years - after the
gradual arrival of 'the neolithic cultural package' of
proto-agriculture, from Southern Europe?

just a thought?

;)

Ric


--- Merryn Dineley <merryn at dineley.com> wrote:

> Some new ideas about burnt mounds and fulacht fiadh.
> Some folk might be 
> interested in this, especially those of you who have
> visited Ronnie 
> Simison's burnt mound on South Ronaldsday, where the
> stone trough and 
> bronze age building can be seen at Liddle Farm.
> Close by Tomb of the Eagles.
> 
> It is interesting how these news reports have missed
> the malt and refer 
> instead to 'milled barley' being used to make beer.
> Also they report 
> that the beer was fermented in the trough but it
> wasn't. The trough was 
> used for mashing.
> 
>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6941951.stm
>
http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/environmental-services/200708104056.htm
> 
> For the full, correct story and some great pictures
> of this great bit of 
> practical research into a much neglected area of our
> ancient past see
> 
> www.mooregroup.ie/beer/index.html.