He became especially interested in the history of wine, beer, and ale after picking grapes in Germany after college.
Patrick E. McGovern, 80, of Media, pioneering scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, adjunct professor of anthropology at Penn, international researcher, prolific author, and brewer, died Sunday, Aug. 24, of complications from cancer at his home.
Dr. McGovern was a curious, adventurous, and innovative researcher, colleagues said. For four decades, from his first year at the Penn Museum in 1977 to his semi-retirement five years ago, he traveled to archaeological excavations around the world, analyzed molecular residue on ancient ceramic jars, shards of pottery, and other unearthed objects, and pioneered the emerging field of biomolecular archaeology.
He was affiliated with the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology at Penn and personally directed research on ancient cuisine, fermented beverages, and health. Those examinations revealed previously unknown ingredients to ancient recipes for, among other things, barbecued lamb, goat stew, chocolate, medicine, and dye.
He became especially interested in the history of wine, beer, and ale after picking grapes in Germany after college, and he collaborated with Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery to recreate an award-winning collection of long-lost beer recipes they market as ancient ales.
"Just about every culture you can think of, they have a fermented beverage that's central to the social activity, religions, and a lot of times, it becomes economically very important," Dr. McGovern told NPR in a 2017 interview. Ken Schramm, cofounder of Schramm's Mead in Ferndale, Mich., said Dr. McGovern "understood better than anyone, and at a molecular level, the critical role that wine, beer, mead, and their various combinations played in how we became the civilization that we are now."
He visited big digs in China, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Central America, and supervised Penn's Baq'ah Valley study of ancient artifacts in Jordan for more than 25 years. He appeared with Dogfish Head cofounder Sam Calagione on the Brew Masters Discovery Channel reality show, and he lectured about his career and the history of alcoholic beverages at the Penn Museum, San Francisco Wine School, Dickinson College, American Whiskey Convention, and elsewhere.
His revelations -- including the world's oldest recorded rice wine in China, the oldest beer in Iran, and a unique wine, beer, and mead concoction in Turkey -- were reported by The Inquirer, Daily News, New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, and other outlets. The Inquirer called him an archaeochemist in 1985, and others nicknamed him the Indiana Jones of ancient alcohol.
His wrote or cowrote more than a half dozen books, including Ancient Wine in 2003, Uncorking the Past in 2009, and Ancient Brews Rediscovered and Re-created in 2017. He also wrote hundreds of papers and chapters for the journal Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other publications.
He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Cornell University in New York and a doctorate in Near Eastern archaeology and literature at Penn. "Archaeology is always providing surprises," he told The Inquirer in 1985. "You find things that are dropped or buried, and then you go in and try to reconstruct what was there. You fit all the pieces together, and you learn about a people."
Meadmaker Ken Schramm said: "His brilliance as both an archaeologist and a chemist made him an utter thrill to have a glass of wine with."
Patrick Edward McGovern was born Dec. 9, 1944, in Texas. The oldest of three boys, he grew up in New York and earned his bachelor's degree in 1966 and doctorate in 1980. In between, he spent a year in medical school at the University of Rochester in New York and earned master's degrees in sacred theology and divinity at a theological school.
He met Doris Nordmeier at church while at Cornell. They reunited later in Philadelphia, married in 1972, and lived in West Philadelphia and Upper Darby before moving to Media in 2002.
Dr. McGovern and his wife traveled the world together for years. They enjoyed birding, and he played the piano. People called him Dr. Pat and Gov.
"Just the prospect of discovering something new, that's what really drives me," he told NPR. "We're going to find out something exciting, and we're going to recreate another liquid time capsule that's going to transport you back to some period in our ancestry.
"That's the basic motivation. Because every time you discover something, you get, like, a high. I think it's the best high in the world."
His wife said: "He was very sweet, mild, and kind. He could never hurt anyone. He was the most loving person."
In addition to his wife, Dr. McGovern is survived by a brother and other relatives. A brother died earlier.