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Comment by flukus | Hacker News Reader

I think any alcohol dependence would be much more recent than that, I doubt asian glow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction) would be a thing of we were getting drunk on the Savannah.

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Actually, some monkeys develop alcohol dependence in the wild (they get their alcohol from ripe fermenting fruits).

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/chimpanzees-...

Here's also an extract from a BBC Nature documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk

Apparently, the monkeys are divided among heavy drinkers, occasional drinkers or teetootalers in proportions that are roughly equal to those among human beings.

The "Asian flush" response is the result of a mutation that is believed to have arisen in Asia, and is relatively uncommon in Europe and Africa. So the ancestral (savannah) state may have been tipsy indeed. The derived allele appears to have been positively selected in Asia, possibly because it is protective against alcohol dependency, but the selective pressure hasn't been conclusively established.

Human evolution has been hand in hand with ethanol, likely mammalian evolution. But those incidents of alcohol abuse only would occur when fruit was fermenting on the vine/tree as this youtube video humorously demonstrates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tlF3kGbT4

Also, many 'native' peoples in the Americas, Australia, and Oceania have large problems with alcohol abuse. Large areas of Queensland forbid any ethanol, even for medicinal use, because of these social problems.

I guess I was vague - I meant to contrast the "savannah ancestors" fixation of evopsych with considering evolution of humans in the modern era. While normally evolutionary psychology worries about the tens of thousands of years of prehistoric man, the thousands-ish years of drunken modern man would still definitely have an impact.

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