Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, November 14, 2011 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
Patrick E. McGovern
"Uncorking The Past: Ancient Ales, Wines, And Extreme Beverages"
ABSTRACT -- Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological and chemical clues around the world and through the millennia, Patrick McGovern, Scientific Director of the Penn Museum's Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory, tells the compelling story of humanity's ingenious, inspired quest for the perfect drink. The speaker will illustrate the biomolecular archaeological approach by describing the discovery of the most ancient, chemically-attested alcoholic beverage in the world, dating back to about 7000 B.C. Based on the analyses of some of the world's earliest pottery from Jiahu in the Yellow River valley of China, a mixed fermented beverage of rice, hawthorn fruit/grape, and honey was reconstructed. A recent finding by his laboratory and colleagues is a fermented beverage made from the fruit pod of the cacao tree, as based on analyses of ca. 1200 B.C. pottery shards from the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras. As the earliest chemically attested instance of chocolate in the Americas, this beverage might well have been the incentive for domesticating the cacao tree. Like grape and rice wine, chocolate "wine"—in time made only from roasted beans--went on to become the prerogative of royalty and the upper class, and a focus of religion.
SPEAKER -- Dr. Patrick E. McGovern is the Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, where he is also an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology. Over the past two decades, he has pioneered the exciting interdisciplinary field of Biomolecular Archaeology which is yielding whole new chapters concerning our human ancestry, medical practice, and ancient cuisines and beverages. Dr. McGovern has authored several books on ancient fermented beverages, including Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages (Berkeley: University of California, 2009) and Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton University, 2006).