HONG KONG — China is abuzz with craft brewing², with small-scale operations popping up around the country and churning out beer tasting of everything from goji berries to green tea.

香港——在中国，精酿啤酒正在成为一种风尚，小型精酿作坊在全国各地纷纷冒出，酿造从枸杞到绿茶等各种口味的啤酒。

But like many things in China, what’s new isn’t that new. In this case, it’s about 5,000 years old.

但是就像中国的很多东西一样，新的风尚其实古已有之。大约5000年前，中国人就已经在酿造啤酒了。

A group of researchers in China and the United States have analyzed³ pottery⁴ vessels⁵ discovered at a site in Shaanxi Province and determined⁶ that they are the first direct evidence of a beer-brewing operation. And the ingredients they discovered are as eclectic as any trendy brewpub’s: broomcorn millet⁷, tubers and a grain known as Job’s tears.

中国和美国的研究人员对陕西省发现的一批陶器进行了分析，证明它们是啤酒酿造活动的首个直接证据。他们在陶器里发现了黍、根茎作物和薏米的成分，这样不拘一格的选材可以和当下的时髦啤酒酿造坊媲美。

The scholars’ paper, which was published this week in the Proceedings⁸ of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), says the mix of ingredients was probably achieved through trial and error. The tubers, which included snake gourd⁹ root, contribute starch¹⁰ and sugars for fermentation and also add a sweet flavor to the beer, they wrote.

他们的论文本周发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences，简称PNAS）上，研究者称这种成分组成可能是通过不断试错的方法获得的。他们写道，根茎包括丝瓜根，它可以促进淀粉和糖分发酵，给啤酒添加香甜口味。

The study was based on analysis of a “beer-making tool kit¹¹” that includes a funnel¹², shards¹³ of pots and amphorae, and a pottery stove that would have been used for mashing¹⁴. Radiocarbon dating of the Mijiaya site near the Chan River in Shaanxi Province dates it to 3400 to 2900 B.C.

这项研究的对象是一个“啤酒制作器物套件组”，其中包括一个漏斗、一些阔口罐和小口尖底瓶的碎片，还有一个用于淀粉糖化的陶灶。根据放射性碳测年技术的测定，陕西省陈河附近的米家崖遗址介于公元前3400年到公元前2900年之间。

A yellowish residue¹⁵ from inside the funnel and pot shards was analyzed to discern the ingredients. The starches¹⁶ showed signs of damage that resemble what happens in the process of beer brewing, the authors said.

他们对漏斗和壶碎片上发黄的残留物进行分析，辨别它的成分。结果发现，残留物中含有很多出现损伤迹象的淀粉粒，与酿酒过程中淀粉粒的损伤特征类似。

“It makes a very convincing case that this was a beer-making facility,” Patrick McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology¹⁷ Project at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, told the blog PNAS Journal Club. He was not involved in the study.

“这是很有说服力的证据，说明它们是酿酒器物，”宾夕法尼亚大学博物馆(University of Pennsylvania Museum)生物分子考古项目的科学主管帕特里克·麦戈文(Patrick McGovern)对PNAS Journal Club博客说。他没有参与这项研究。

The presence of barley¹⁸, which did not become an important subsistence crop until the Han dynasty, 3,000 years later, led the authors to suggest that alcohol production was an important reason for the grain’s introduction from western Eurasia, where it was first domesticated¹⁹.

大麦首先最初是在欧亚大陆被驯化的，在中原，直到3000年之后的汉代，大麦才成为了一种重要口粮作物，所以作者们认为，酿酒是中原从西域引入大麦的一个重要原因。

“Beer was probably an important part of ritual feasting in ancient China,” one of the study’s authors, Jiajing Wang of Stanford University, told the Journal Club. “So it’s possible that this finding of beer is associated with increased social complexity²⁰ and changing events of the time.”

“啤酒可能是中国古代仪式盛宴的重要组成部分，”这篇论文的作者之一、斯坦福大学考古专业博士生王佳静告诉Journal Club博客。“我们在古代中原地区发现的酒，可以和当时发生的社会变化联系起来。”

Although the brew¹ remnants that were discovered are truly ancient, they are not the oldest that have been uncovered in China. Mr. McGovern and a team of scholars from China, Germany and the United States wrote a 2004 paper for PNAS that analyzed 9,000-year-old pottery jars found in a neolithic²¹ village site in Henan Province called Jiahu. Based on their analysis, the jars held a rice, honey and fruit beverage²².

虽然他们发现的这些酿造残留物的确来自古代，但却不是已发现的中国最古老的这类遗迹。在2004年的一篇PNAS论文中，麦戈文和一个由中国、德国和美国学者组成的团队对一些有9000年历史的陶罐进行过分析，它们来自河南省一个名叫贾湖的新石器时代村落遗址。据他们分析，这些陶罐曾盛载过用水稻、蜂蜜和水果酿造的饮料。

Mr. McGovern worked with Dogfish Head Brewery²³ in Delaware to recreate that recipe in a beverage known as Chateau²⁴ Jiahu.

麦戈文与特拉华州的角鲨头啤酒坊(Dogfish Head Brewery)合作，复原了这个古代配方，用它酿造了一种名为“贾湖城”(Chateau Jiahu)的饮料。