中美考古学家联合研究表明：

我国9000年前已经开始酿酒

     最近，中国科学技术大学科技史与科技考古系张居中教授与美国宾夕法尼
亚大学考古与人类学博物馆的Patrick E. McGovern教授合作的项目得出结果：
在对河南贾湖遗址中发现的陶器进行分析时，找到了中国目前发现的存在最早的
酒的证据：8600年前留存下来的实物证明，我国当时已经掌握了酒的制造方法，
所用原料包括稻米、蜂蜜、水果等。这一发现将中国造酒的历史又向前推进了近
4000年，研究结果已于本周刊登在《美国国家科学院学报》上。美联社等国外媒
体进行了广泛报道。

     河南省舞阳县的贾湖遗址距今约9000年至7000年，是淮河流域迄今所知年
代最早的新石器文化遗存，曾被评为20世纪中国100项考古大发现之一。它曾以
发现世界最早的七声音阶骨笛而闻名。1984年以来，主持贾湖历次发掘的张居中
教授带领中国考古学家在遗址中发掘出了大批陶器。考古人员发现这些数千年前
的陶器碎片上留有一些沉淀物，为了弄清这些沉淀物的真相，1999年开始，中方
将部分陶片样本提供给美方专家进行化验，中美专家合作对这些陶器碎片上的沉
淀物进行研究。

    美国费城宾州大学的考古化学家Patrick McGovern一直从事世界酒史研究，
曾于1994年研究证明，伊朗早在公元前5400年左右就有葡萄酒。1999年McGovern
来我国做学术访问时，希望能和国内专家合作进行酒史研究。张居中等将国内一
批考古实物，包括1984—1987年在河南省舞阳县著名的新石器时代早期遗址——
贾湖遗址发掘出土、距今8600年到7500年的一些陶瓷碎片，以及由中国社会科学
院考古研究所唐际根研究员等提供的河南安阳殷墟出土的青铜器中的酒渍残留物，
河南省考古研究所张志清研究员等提供的出自河南鹿邑太清宫商末周初大墓中封
闭的青铜器内的液态酒的等提供给他。据国外媒体报道，Patrick McGovern在得
知青铜瓶里存在液体的一刹那，他“感到简直无法相信”。

      Patrick E. McGovern教授等对这些陶器进行了一系列的化学分析，分析
方法包括气相色谱分析、液相色谱分析、傅立叶变换红外光谱分析、稳定同位素
分析等。分析结果显示，这些沉淀物含有酒类挥发后的酒石酸。另外，残留物的
化学成分与现代稻米、米酒、葡萄酒、蜂蜡、葡萄丹宁酸以及一些古代和现代草
药所含的某些化学成分相同，残留物还包含有山楂的化学成分。分析发现全部酒
呈现出稻米的化学特性，在年代最长的酒（贾湖遗址陶片）里还发现含有蜂蜜。
对这些分析结果的直接解释是陶器盛放过以稻米、蜂蜜和水果为原料混和发酵而
成的饮料。他们认为因为掺有蜂蜜，这些最古老的发酵饮料，味道肯定“甘甜可
口”；贾湖遗址经过碳14断代测定年代在公元前7000至5500之间，这些实验说明
了早在新石器时代早期，中国人就开始饮用发酵饮料。

    1994年，研究人员对宾夕法尼亚大学考古队在伊朗一处新石器时代遗址挖掘
出的两个罐子内的白酒进行了化学检测，发现白酒的历史可追溯至大约公元前
5400年。这是国外所发现的最早的酒精饮料，中国最早的酒目前学界大多认为出
自距今5000——4000年的仰韶文化晚期至龙山文化时期。张居中教授表示：“可
以肯定地说，这次贾湖的发现，改写了这一纪录，比国外发现的最早的酒也要早
1千多年。成为世界上目前发现的最早的与酒有关的实物资料。”美国吐桑市亚
历桑那大学的考古学家David Killick说，该研究是一项“给人印象极其深刻的
‘侦探’工作”。

                      （科技史与科技考古系  蓝万里 供稿）
9,000-YEAR HISTORY OF CHINESE FERMENTED BEVERAGES CONFIRMED BY PENN
MUSEUM ARCHAEOCHEMIST AND AN INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF SCHOLARS


PHILADELPHIA, PA, December 2004--Chemical analyses of ancient organics
absorbed, and preserved, in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of
Jiahu, in Henan province, Northern China, have revealed that a mixed
fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit was being produced as
early as 9,000 years ago, approximately the same time that barley beer
and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East.

In addition, liquids more than 3,000 years old, remarkably preserved
inside tightly lidded bronze vessels, were chemically analyzed. These
vessels from the capital city of Anyang and an elite burial in the
Yellow River Basin, dating to the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties (ca.
1250-1000 B.C.), contained specialized rice and millet "wines." The
beverages had been flavored with herbs, flowers, and/or tree resins,
and are similar to herbal wines described in the Shang dynasty oracle
inscriptions.

The new discoveries, made by an international, multi-disciplinary team
of researchers including the University of Pennsylvania Museum's
archaeochemist Dr. Patrick McGovern of MASCA (Museum Applied Science
Center for Archaeology), provide the first direct chemical evidence
for early fermented beverages in ancient Chinese culture, thus
broadening our understanding of the key technological and cultural
roles that fermented beverages played in China.

The discoveries and their implications for understanding ancient
Chinese culture will be published on-line the week of December 6, 2004
in the PNAS Early Edition (Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences): "Fermented Beverages of Pre-and Proto-historic China," by
Patrick E. McGovern, Juzhong Zhang, Jigen Tang, Zhiquing Zhang,
Gretchen R. Hall, Robert A. Moreau, Alberto Nu?ez, Eric D. Butrym,
Michael P. Richards, Chen-shan Wang, Guangsheng Cheng, Zhijun Zhao,
and Changsui Wang. Dr. McGovern worked with this team of researchers,
associated with the University of Science and Technology of China in
Hefei, the Institute of Archaeology in Beijing, the Institute of
Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the Firmenich Corporation, Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany), and the
Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The PNAS
article may be read by clicking here.

Dr. McGovern first met with archaeologists and scientists, including
his co-authors on the paper, in China in 2000, returning there in 2001
and 2002. Because of the great interest in using modern scientific
techniques to investigate a crucial aspect of ancient Chinese culture,
collaboration was initiated and samples carried back to the U.S. for
analysis. Chemical tests of the pottery from the Neolithic village of
Jiahu was of special interest, because it is some of the earliest
known pottery from China. This site was already famous for yielding
some of the earliest musical instruments and domesticated rice, as
well as possibly the earliest Chinese pictographic writing. Through a
variety of chemical methods including gas and liquid
chromatography-mass spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, and stable
isotope analysis, finger-print compounds were identified, including
those for hawthorn fruit and/or wild grape, beeswax associated with
honey, and rice.

The prehistoric beverage at Jiahu, Dr. McGovern asserts, paved the way
for unique cereal beverages of the proto-historic 2nd millennium BC,
remarkably preserved as liquids inside sealed bronze vessels of the
Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties. The vessels had become hermetically
sealed when their tightly fitting lids corroded, preventing evaporation.
Numerous bronze vessels with these liquids have been excavated at
major urban centers along the Yellow River, especially from elite
burials of high-ranking individuals. Besides serving as burial goods
to sustain the dead in the afterlife, the vessels and their contents
can also be related to funerary ceremonies in which living
intermediaries communicated with the deceased ancestor and gods in an
altered state of consciousness after imbibing a fermented beverage.

"The fragrant aroma of the liquids inside the tightly lidded jars and
vats, when their lids were first removed after some three thousand
years, suggested that they indeed represented Shang and Western Zhou
fermented beverages, " Dr. McGovern noted. Samples of liquid inside
vessels from the important capital of Anyang and the Changzikou Tomb
in Luyi county were analyzed. The combined archaeochemical,
archaeobotanical and archaeological evidence for the Changzikou Tomb
and Anyang liquids point to their being fermented and filtered rice or
millet "wines," either jiu or chang, its herbal equivalent, according
to the Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.
Specific aromatic herbs (e.g., wormword), flowers (e.g., chrysanthemum),
and/or tree resins (e.g., China fir and elemi) had been added to the
wines, according to detected compounds such as camphor and
alpha-cedrene, beta-amyrin and oleanolic acid, as well as benzaldehyde,
acetic acid, and short-chain alcohols characteristic of rice and
millet wines.

Both jiu and chang of proto-historic China were likely made by mold
saccharification, a uniquely Chinese contribution to beverage-making
in which an assemblage of mold species are used to break down the
carbohydrates of rice and other grains into simple, fermentable sugars.
Yeast for fermentation of the simple sugars enters the process
adventitiously, either brought in by insects or settling on to large
and small cakes of the mold conglomerate (qu) from the rafters of old
buildings. As many as 100 special herbs, including wormwood, are used
today to make qu, and some have been shown to increase the yeast
activity by as much as seven-fold.

For Dr. McGovern, who began his role in the Chinese wine studies in
2000, this discovery offers an exciting new chapter in our rapidly
growing understanding of the importance of fermented beverages in
human culture around the world. In 1990, he and colleagues Rudolph H.
Michel and Virginia R. Badler first made headlines with the discovery
of what was then the earliest known chemical evidence of wine, dating
to ca. 3500-3100 B.C., from Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of
western Iran (see "Drink and Be
Merry!: Infrared Spectroscopy and Ancient Near Eastern Wine" in
Organic Contents of Ancient Vessels: Materials Analysis and
Archaeological Investigation, eds. W. R. Biers and P.E. McGovern,
MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, vol. 7, Philadelphia:
MASCA, University of Pennsylvania Museum, University of Pennsylvania).
That finding was followed up by the earliest chemically confirmed
barley beer in 1992, inside another vessel from the same room at Godin
Tepe that housed the wine jars. In 1994, chemical testing confirmed
resinated wine inside two jars excavated by a Penn archaeological team
at the Neolithic site of Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, dating to ca. 5400 B.C.
and some 2000 years earlier than the Godin Tepe jar. Dr. McGovern is
author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture
(Princeton University Press, 2003).

Dr. McGovern's research was made possible by support from the National
Natural Science Foundation of China, the Henry Luce Foundation, and
the National Science Foundation (2000-2001; award BCS-9911128). The
GC-MS analyses were carried out in the Chemistry Department of Drexel
University through the kind auspices of J. P. Honovich. Dr. McGovern
also thanks the Institute of Archaeology in Beijing and Zhengzhou for
logistical support and providing samples for analysis. Qin Ma Hui,
Wuxiao Hong, Hsing-Tsung Huang, Shuicheng Li, Guoguang Luo, Victor Mair,
Harold Olmo, Vernon Singleton, and Tiemei Chen variously advised on or
facilitated the research. Changsui Wang, chairperson of the
Archaeometry program at the University of Science and Technology of
China in Hefei (Anhui Province) was untiring in his enthusiasm for the
project, and personally accompanied Dr.
McGovern on travels to excavations and institutes, where
collaborations and meetings with key scientists and archaeologists
were arranged.


http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0407921102v1?view=abstract

Published online before print December 8, 2004 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
USA, 10.1073/pnas.0407921102


This Article

Full Text (PDF)
Alert me when this article is cited
Alert me if a correction is posted


PubMed Citation
Articles by McGovern, P. E.
Articles by Wang, C.

Chemistry
Anthropology-Social Sciences
Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China ( archaeological
chemistry | Neolithic period | Shang Dynasty | alcohol |
saccharification )

Patrick E. McGovern *, Juzhong Zhang , Jigen Tang , Zhiqing Zhang ?,
Gretchen R. Hall *, Robert A. Moreau ||, Alberto Nu?ez ||, Eric D.
Butrym **, Michael P. Richards , Chen-shan Wang *, Guangsheng Cheng ,
Zhijun Zhao , and Changsui Wang *Museum Applied Science Center for
Archaeology (MASCA), University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA 19104; Department of Scientific
History and Archaeometry, University of Science and Technology of China,
Hefei, Anhui 230026, China; Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China; ?Institute of Cultural
Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province, Zhengzhou 450000, China;
||Eastern Regional Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Wyndmoor, PA 19038; **Firmenich Corporation, Princeton, NJ 08543;
Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; and Institute of Microbiology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 10080, China



Communicated by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA,
November 16, 2004 (received for review September 30, 2003)

Chemical analyses of ancient organics absorbed into pottery jars from
the early Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province in China have
revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit
(hawthorn fruit and/or grape) was being produced as early as the
seventh millennium before Christ (B.C.). This prehistoric drink paved
the way for unique cereal beverages of the proto-historic second
millennium B.C., remarkably preserved as liquids inside sealed bronze
vessels of the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties. These findings
provide direct evidence for fermented beverages in ancient Chinese
culture, which were of considerable social, religious, and medical
significance, and help elucidate their earliest descriptions in the
Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Author contributions: P.E.M., G.R.H., R.A.M., A.N., M.P.R., and Z.
Zhao designed research; P.E.M., G.R.H., R.A.M., A.N., M.P.R., C.-s.W.,
and Z.
Zhao performed research; P.E.M., G.R.H., R.A.M., A.N., M.P.R., and Z.
Zhao analyzed data; P.E.M., G.R.H., and M.P.R. wrote the paper; J.Z.,
J.T., and Z. Zhang advised on archaeological contexts and
interpretation and provided samples; C.-s.W. translated and
interpreted Chinese books and articles; G.C. advised on rice wine
fermentation and amylolysis systems; and C.W.
advised on research.

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Patrick E. McGovern, E-mail: mcgovern@sas.upenn.edu

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0407921102

转自新语丝