Scientific Director, University of Pennsylvania Museum
Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Fermented Beverages
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.
McGovern will describe how enterprising our ancestors were in concocting a host of fermented beverages from a vast array of natural products (honey, grape, barley, rice, sorghum, chocolate, etc.) and explain the profound effects these beverages have had on our cultural and biological development.
This event was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers. It is sponsored in partnership with The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee and co-sponsored by the Departments of Archaeology, Anthropology, History and Classics.
Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Patrick E. McGovern directs the Biomolecular Archaeology Project at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, where he is also an adjunct professor of anthropology and consulting scholar in the Near East Section. Over the past two decades, he has pioneered the exciting interdisciplinary field of Biomolecular Archaeology which is yielding whole new chapters concerning our human ancestry, medical practice, and ancient cuisines and beverages. Popularly, Dr. Pat is known as the “Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales, Wines, and Extreme Beverages.” He is the author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (2003), and most recently, Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages (2009).