OT(very) 1,000-year-old brewery unearthed

Since *some* rec.ponders find recreational beverages to be of
inordinate help in pond chores....

1,000-Year-Old Brewery Unearthed
(Reuters) - U.S. researchers have unearthed what they say may be the oldest
known brewery in the Andes, a pre-Incan plant at least 1,000 years old that
could produce drinks for hundreds of people at one sitting.
*The University of Florida said on Thursday that its archeologists and
researchers from the Field Museum in Chicago found the brewery at Cerro Baul, a
mountaintop religious center of the Wari empire that ruled what is now Peru
hundreds of years before the Incas.
At least 20 ceramic, 10- to 15-gallon vats were found at the site some 8,000
feet up in the mountains of southern Peru.
"You get the idea that this is massive production, not just your basic
household making beer to consume by itself," Susan deFrance, an assistant
professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, said in a statement.
Patrick Ryan Williams, assistant curator at the Field Museum, said the site was
remarkable for its size. Small-scale brewing is known to have been done in the
Andes for thousands of years, he said by telephone from Peru.
The Wari civilization thrived from about A.D. 700 to 1000, conquering all of
what is modern Peru before swiftly and mysteriously declining.
The brewery is thought to have produced "chicha," an alcoholic drink derived at
the time mainly from a berry of the molle pepper plant. Modern chicha is made
from corn.
Last year University of Florida archeologists discovered what they think are
halls for "ritual intoxication" at Cerro Baul, where Wari noblemen apparently
feasted and drank.
Mike Moseley, associate chairman of anthropology at the university, said the
halls "become a place where politics are negotiated and economic decisions are
made." Williams said each nobleman would have consumed up to 2.6 gallons of
chicha per ceremony.
The site appears to have been destroyed in a closing rite. The Wari burned the
structures, threw their mugs into the embers and laid down a half-dozen
necklaces of semiprecious stones as they left, said Moseley.

kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

"Ka30P" wrote in message
...
Since *some* rec.ponders find recreational beverages to be of
inordinate help in pond chores....

I wonder when they'll unearth the pond and find the Lotus planted 4 feet
down?

BV.