Serving Alcoholic Beverages to the Ancestors in Neolithic China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

China has a long history of alcoholic production and consumption, and the earliest evidence of fermented beverages has been recovered from pottery vessels about 9,000 years ago. Many drinking vessels have been found in mortuary contexts, suggesting that alcohol was closely related to ancestral worship ritual. In this talk I will discuss the origin, development, and variation of mortuary ritual associated with alcoholic consumption, as well as the social implications of such practice in Neolithic China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36649.0