The life of men and women in the Neolithic village of Abu Hureyra

Abu Hureyra is a place now buried under Lake Assad in Syria. Before the waters invaded the place, there was a mound, and, as usual, where there is a mound, there is digging; a team of archeologists came to unearth the remains of a Neolithic village. 

After digging, washing, brushing, cleaning, classifying, and annalizing, they came to some conclusions about how people lived in the Neolithic, especially in the period when they settled to live in one place, cultivating plants and raising livestock versus migrating from place to place, following the animal herds and crop seasons. 

According to the book The Early Human World by Peter Robertshaw and Jill Rubalcaba, which follows the discoveries at Abu Hureyra, the life of Neolithic people was very hard: hours and hours of long physical work, repetitive (and boring, according to modern standards) daily jobs, and enduring, alienating illnesses. 

Archeologists' conclusions after digging and analyzing the site suggest a heartbreaking, hard-to-believe picture of a small society trying to survive by farming and raising sheep and goats. 

Archeologists have uncovered seeds of wheat and barley and the remains of sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle. 

The Neolithic villagers used to carry their crop from the field to their houses on their heads, so the neck bones grew larger. Also, their upper arms got stronger from heavy lifting, causing the bones to bulge. 

They used to grind the grains between two rocks for hours, with their toes curled under their feet until their big toe bones would wear off. They often used their teeth as tools. The archaeologists think they held canes so they could have free hands for other tasks and/or chewed plants to make strings. They used their teeth so much that they carved deep grooves, which must have hurt a lot since they were down to the roots. 

One particular bone deformity speaks about their health. The eye sockets were pitted, and this condition was attributed to the parasites eroding the bone. 

The book mentioned above is full of surprises about the life of Neolithic men and women. The picture is often very different than what we may think after learning from our textbooks. The style is vivid and entertaining. I find it fascinating.  

Beer in the Middle Ages

This is the interior of an old inn in Bucharest, Romania.
It is called "Caru cu bere" which may translate
as "The Beer Wagon"
Photo by Baloo69 on Wikimedia Commons
 may translate as

Today, we think of beer mainly as an alcoholic beverage that’s consumed as a drink and gets you in trouble if you don’t know when to stop. But back in the day, people used beer for extended purposes and for other reasons then just entertaining around a football game.

Back in the day, they even made beer soup for the entire family; parents, grandparents, and kids were fed with beer soup.
Beer Soup Medieval Recipe (When beer was served for breakfast and beer bellies were well respected)  This is an article I wrote last summer for Hubpages. It is a short history of beer mainly with the purpose of introducing an old beer soup recipe.

Today I want to speak about beer as a drink in the Middle Ages.
Now, we may think that centuries ago, the best drink for most people was water. And this is partially true. But we do not know that a better drink for our ancestors was beer. And it was quite common among people of all conditions and ages.

One reason they consumed beer was that the water was often impure, posing a health hazard. In this regard, beer was far healthier. The fermentation process of the grains destroys most of the harmful bacteria and other germs that may contaminate the water, so beer was a far more hygienic drink.

Beer was brewed by everyone. The earliest people we know today that they made this drink were Egyptians, some 2000 years B.C. It is said that Greeks and Romans liked wine, though they, too, knew how to make beer.

In the Middle Ages, beer was made at home by housewives, sold at taverns to customers, and in large commercial enterprises for mass consumption. It was so popular that it became the drink of the “common man,” with the largest consumption in German Countries, the Low Countries, and England. It was even a method of payment for workers.

Beer also had its rules and regulations in cities and monasteries, where monks got beer at strict ratios. In London, they had to limit how much water you could draw from a well or spring. (Because they would dry out the wells). In fact, some historians have said that, for the countries mentioned above, there was one brewery for every one hundred people. In this condition, it is no wonder that the municipality of London found them dangerous for the public water supplies.

Beer was not the only drink, though. They also made wine, especially in Greece, Italy, Spain, France, and other eastern and central European countries. With all these drinks, medieval people did not give up on water. But this may be my next subject.