Alcohol arguably the catalist for early large scale human gatherings and then the dawn of agriculture. But it then also became necessary for humans to manage the stress of living in closer proximity to each other. It was both a motivation to settle down, and then once we did settle down, it was a tool for helping us cope with that.
Do we have alcohol to thank for civilization? The answer, according to Edward Slingerland’s new book, “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” is a resounding yes. Edward, who’s a professor at the University of British Columbia and self-proclaimed “philosophical hedonist,” says that far from being an evolutionary fluke, our taste for alcohol is an evolutionary advantage — one that we’ve relied on for millennia to help us lead more social, creative, and pleasurable lives.