Fermenting fruit and the historical ecology of ethanol ingestion: is alcoholism in modern humans an evolutionary hangover?

In the field of addiction research, the possibility of ancestral exposure to psychoactive compounds has generally been excluded. A paleobiological approach to the human diet, however, illustrates the potential utility of historical data in interpreting modern-day addictive behaviors. Low-level dietary exposure to ethanol via ingestion of fermenting fruit has probably characterized the predominantly frugivorous anthropoid lineage for about 40...