The list of the world's earliest brewing regions, named brewing basins.
This list is indicative and may be revised according to future documents and studies. This inventory only covers the primitive brewing basins related to the domestication of plants and the protohistory of the brewery, as far as they can be understood.
For the historical evolution of these basins - some are merging - see Evolution of Brewery Bassins.
|
N° |
Primitive brewery basins |
Starchy plants |
Related human cultures |
|
Bb1 |
Northern China (Huang-He + Henan delta) , Corea, Japan |
Millets, barley, lilium bulbs snake-gourd, yam, Job's tears, peas. |
Erlitou, Erligang, Yangshao |
|
Bb2 |
Southern China (Yangtze) |
Rice, millet, taro, sago-palm |
Pengtoushan, Majiabang, Hemudu |
|
Bb3 |
South-East Asia, Mekong basin |
Taro, bean, yam |
Chams, Khmers, Moï, ... |
|
Bb4 |
Philippines / Indonesia |
Taro, yam, sago-palm |
|
|
Bb5 |
Tibetan plateau/ Himalaya |
barley, finger-millet |
Tibet, Nepal, Bhuthan, Ladakh |
|
Bb6 |
Ganges valley / Bengal |
Rice, bean-mung |
Vedic India, Maurya and Gupta empires |
|
Bb7 |
Central Asia (Caucasus + Iran + Afghanistan + Turkmenistan + Indus bassin + Tadjikistan) |
barley, wheat |
Civilisations of the Indus, Persia and the Caucasus |
|
Bb8 |
Asian steppe (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, ...) |
? |
Terra incognita for the archaeology of beer (?) |
|
Bb9 |
Near-East, Egypt |
Barley, wheat, rye, oat, buckwheat, date-palm (?) |
Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians |
|
Bb10 |
Eastern Africa |
Teff, doura, finger-millet, |
Nubia, Kush, Aksum, Sudan |
|
Bb11 |
Great Lakes Africa |
Plantain, bananas, finger millet |
Burundi, Rwanda, Buganda kingdoms |
|
Bb12 |
Sub-saharian Africa and Niger basin, Western Africa |
Sorghum, millet, finger-millet, African rice |
Ghana, Mali, Kanem-Bornou, Songhaï kingdoms. |
|
Bb13 |
Tropical Africa |
yam |
Kongo, Zimbabwe kingdoms. |
|
Bb14 |
Mexico/Central America |
Maize, beans |
Maya, Toltec, Olmec. |
|
Bb15 |
Andean Cordillera, coastal Ecuador, Peru and Chile |
Maize, quinoa, potatoes, Lima bean |
Chavín, Moche, Nazca, Chimù, Wari, Inca, ... |
|
Bb16 |
Amazonian basin, Guyanes Plateau, Caraïb |
Cassava, sweet potato |
Amerindian societies, Carib peoples |
|
Bb17 |
Chili – Patagonia – Argentina |
Potatoes, pseudo carob |
Diaguitas, Tobas, Querandis, Puelches, Tehuelches. |
|
Bb18 |
South-Eastern America, Rockies |
Maize |
Pueblo cultures |
|
Bb19 |
Central, western and northern Europe |
wheat, barley, oat, beans |
Central-Eastern Europe and acidic hydrolyse |
List of the primitive brewing basins of the planet.
There are regions of the world that display no signs or vestiges of primitive brewing traditions:
- North Africa: possible brewing outbreak when the Sahara was wet and fertile between 6000 and 4000 BC. See the rock paintings of Tassili n'Ajjer or El-Medaforh (Tefedest). The absence of vestiges or cultural traces of beer brewing for this region of very ancient agriculture is rather abnormal.
- Southern Africa: Khoïsan peoples, hunter-gatherers whose territories were late occupied by the Bantu peoples, who were farmers and brewers.
- Pacific Archipelagos: late settlement and absence of cultivated starchy plants. The ancestral fermented beverage is kava, a decoction of the rhizome of Piper methisticum which contains 50% starch[1].
- North America (excluding the Rockies). The Algonquian/Iroquoian agricultural complex (maize, climbing bean, squash) in the northeast was transmitted by southern Indian cultures. It is not a primitive brewing basin, but a secondary one. Its antiquity has not been studied. The Mississippian cultures may have brewed beer.
- Austral America (Patagonia): hunter-gatherer peoples
- Australia and New Zealand. Hunter-gatherer peoples without horticulture, as far as we know.
- Siberia and Arctic peoples: lack of starchy plants. Hunter-fisher cultures. Dietetics essentially carnivorous.
[1] The relaxing, stimulating and euphoric effects of methysticine and kavain may have prevented the development of an intoxicating kava-beer. No documents before the first contacts with Europeans.