Neolithic Alcohol in China

These pots were found in graves at the village of Jiahu in the Yellow River valley that date to around 6600-7000 BCE. They are said to contain residue of what is for now the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world:

Chemical analyses recently confirmed that the earliest alcoholic beverage in the world was a mixed fermented drink of rice, honey, and hawthorn fruit and/or grape.

Given the Chinese government's penchant for lying with statistics, I am bit suspicious of the latest wave of "oldest in the world" dates they keep coming up with, but, well, there it is.

I was just musing that maybe the real reason neolithic farmers replaced hunter-gatherers across most of the world was that the farmers had alcohol.