The Kent Family Speaker Series Presents:
Beers, Feasts, and Status: The Role of Beer in Southern Ethiopia and Around the World
Speaker: John W. Arthur, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
Across the globe and throughout time, the drinking of Indigenous beer has been utilized as an expression of a variety of identities, including age, gender, status, and ethnicity. It can serve to either bond or exclude people in a community. Beer has a deep history in Africa connecting the living with the spirits shaping ritual practices, as well as motivating people to work as a form of economic payment. For the last 25 years Dr. Arthur has worked with the Indigenous Gamo of southern Ethiopia and here discusses the role of beer in their society.
This talk draws on Dr. Arthur’s ethnoarchaeological study of household pottery assemblages, his discovery of pottery use-alteration as an indicator of beer production, and his recent analysis of archaeological pottery assemblages from Gamo historical sites. His research identifies and explores the importance of beer in societies around the world.
This lecture series generously supported by Julie Kent ‘18MS and Scott Kent ‘13.
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