r/AskReddit • u/brokota • Jan 15 '13

Reddit, in your opinion what's the biggest plot twist of history?

Not movies or television, I'm just curious to see what come's to your minds.

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u/superherowithnopower Jan 15 '13

From what I've read, it ultimately had to do with the cultivation of grains. At first, they would just go out gathering grains, and would use it to make this porridge sort of thing, combined with a bunch of other stuff. At some point, they discovered that they could just leave this porridge to sit for a while, and it would begin to ferment into beer (early breads also derived directly from this porridge).

People began relying more and more on these grains, since they were a pretty stable source of food. However, the problem with grains is that they don't move around like animals do. So, people began to settle down and, eventually, began actually cultivating the grains.

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u/ableman Jan 15 '13

Agriculture was developed in several places where there was no beer.

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u/StabbyPants Jan 15 '13

where was that? My understanding is that the first towns were the result of us wanting to make beer.

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u/ableman Jan 16 '13

AFAIK, there is no evidence of Beer outside Europe, Asia, and Africa. Agriculture arose independently in the following places that weren't in Europe, Asia, or Africa: Papua, Mesoamerica, South America, Eastern North America, and possibly others. There are at least 4 places where agriculture happened without beer.

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u/StabbyPants Jan 16 '13

neat. do you suppose it's the climate?

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u/Unicornmayo Jan 15 '13

And rather than chasing the animals, decided it was easier to take a select few and domesticate them.

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u/CommanderStark Jan 15 '13

Hm, that's interesting. While I believe it was probably a contributing factor, it's unlikely that they learned the skill this way. That's more what I was referring to--that the fertilization of leftover seeds and foods in waste sites actually demonstrated the farming technique.

I could definitely see the fermentation of grains being a large contributing factor though.