The Civilization That Drinks Together...

When European explorers reached the American continent, among the largest groups of people they found were the Aztecs in Mexico and Central America, and the Inca in South America. But before the Inca dominated Peru, it was home to a large nation of people called the Wari. Their particular civilization arose sometime around the year 450 and lasted until about 1000.

The Wari had no written records that we can find, and of course they were long gone by the time Spanish and Portuguese voyagers landed in the area where they had lived. So any information we learn about them comes from archaeological work. That's slow going, and it wasn't until 1950 that researchers even knew where the capital city of their empire was. As the story at Popular Science says, the Wari empire stretched along a strip of land about as long as the distance between Jacksonville and New York City. Which is a lot longer when shank's mare is the only way you have to get from one end to the other.

Archaeologists wondered how the Wari maintained such a far-flung empire. The Romans, of course, had their fantastic road system, but how did people limited to foot travel manage to stick together for more than half a millennium in an area that featured some pretty rugged terrain? How did they build a common culture?

The answer, apparently, was in a particular way of brewing corn beer. Originating in the area around the capital, the Wari developed a certain recipe for Ye Olde Brewksis that it exported to areas which it dominated militarily or economically. Breweries using the recipe were set up in new areas and the product apparently had a variety of cultural and social uses that made the Wari's new neighbors/conquests happy to join in. As far as archaeologists can determine, none of these ancient breweries continued operating much past the time that the Wari civilization collapsed around 1000 AD, which makes them think the Wari beer blend played a large role in uniting the people.

"A civilization held together by beer? You don't say," said every Irishman who's ever lived. "Sure and they must have been fine upstanding folk; 'tis a pity we never met."