Alcohol and Humans

Kimberley Hockings is a lecturer in Conservation Science at the Centre of Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. Her research examines the ways in which human and nonhuman great apes coexist in shared landscapes, including in their overlapping use of resources such as fermented beverages. From this she has developed an interest in the evolutionary origins of ethanol consumption in humans. To effectively understand human and wildlife components of interactions her research increasingly combines biological, ecological, and social science approaches. She conducts fieldwork in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, west Africa, and is a member of the Great Ape Section of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group.Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998. His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality (with particular reference to primates and humans). He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar's Number (the limit on the number of relationships that we can manage). He has published 30 books and edited volumes and over 300 journal articles.

The 13 essays in this edited volume make important contributions to understanding the biological, technical, and social dimensions of alcohol production and consumption in various cultural settings ranging from Neolithic Mesopotamia to modern Bolivia and Guyana. This collection represents the latest work of anthropological scholarship on alcohol, and leading experts in the field of alcohol studies are among the contributors.

• 1: Robin Dunbar and Kimberley Hockings: The puzzle of alcohol consumption2: Robert Dudley: The natural biology of dietary ethanol, and its implications for primate evolution3: Matthew Carrigan: Hominoid Ancestry and the Adaptation to Dietary Ethanol4: Kimberley Hockings, Miho Ito and Gen Yamakoshi: The Importance of Raffia Palm Wine to Coexisting Humans and Chimpanzees5: Elisa Guerra-Doce: The earliest toasts: archaeological evidence of the social and cultural construction of alcohol in prehistoric Europe6: Patrick McGovern: Uncorking the past: alcoholic fermentation as humankind's first biotechnology7: Oliver Dietrich and Laura Dietrich: Rituals and feasting as incentives for cooperative action at early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe8: Michael Dietler: Alcohol as embodied material culture: anthropological reflections on the deep entanglement of humans and alcohol9: Lewis Daly: The nature of sweetness: an indigenous fermentation complex in Amazonian Guyana10: Asher Rosinger and Hilary Bethancourt: Chicha as Water: Traditional Fermented Beer Consumption Among Forager Horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon11: Robin Dunbar: Feasting and its Role in Human Community Formation12: Angela McShane: Through the drinking glass: a long history of pints and performative materialities in England13: Kimberley Hockings and Robin Dunbar: Alcohol and humans: reflections and prospects