Beer may be older than farming.

11,000 BC · 9000 BC · apart: 2000 years

Some 13,000 years ago the Natufians of Raqefet Cave near Haifa brewed a porridge-like beer for ritual feasts, before the first fields were sown.

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The event

• The dawn of farmingc. 9000 BC · Fertile Crescent. Around 11,000 years ago people in the Fertile Crescent began sowing wheat and barley, and later tamed goats, sheep and cattle. Farming also arose independently in China, Mesoamerica, the Andes and New Guinea. Settled life brought population growth and villages, then cities, states and writing.

Prehistory

More amazing facts

• 14,000 BC · 2560 BC · 300 BC Japan's Jōmon period lasted some 14,000 years.
• 13,000 BC · 1965 Houses built of mammoth bones were found by a farmer enlarging his cellar.
• 12,500 BC · 9000 BC Bread was being baked thousands of years before farming began.
• 12,000 BC Some 14,000 years ago, people were already nursing sick dogs.
• 9500 BC · 3000 BC Göbekli Tepe was built around 9500 BC, 6,500 years before Stonehenge.
• 9500 BC · 2560 BC The Shigir Idol from the Urals was carved about 11,500 years ago. When the Great Pyramid was built, it was already almost 7,000 years old, older than the pyramid is today.

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