Fermented brewsky no doubt goes way way back in time, tens of thousands of years before the time of the Pyramids. Seemingly every primitive tribe in the world knew how to do it, even under hunter-gatherer Stone-Age style conditions. All kinds of fruit-eating animals have been known to get drunk - monkeys, birds, fruit bats, even coyotes. Just this past summer I saw plenty of coyote inebriation because they couldn't reach the wild plums up high on the limbs, so ate the over-ripe ones fallen on the ground instead.
Distillation requires specific gear; but even possums in Appalachia know how to do that. The Egyptians fermented agricultural grain, mainly barley, I believe. The Indians in my old neighborhood used manzanita berries and elderberries (the latter horribly laxative), often fermented in dugout canoes. Distilled hooch took over after the Gold Rush, then mass-produced fortified wines, and the average lifespan plummeted 75%.
One device I find interesting is the "invention" of the "first water pump" by Archimedes, called the Archimedes Screw. He simply saw them in action in Assyria and got credit for it in the Greek world. They had been in use in Nineveh hundreds of years before his time. Cordless drills have existed for tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of years, and were better than the ones we use today because they didn't even require batteries!