How far back does mead-making actually extend, and did it arise once or independently in multiple regions?

Naturally fermented honey and water is easy to produce by accident, so mead may have been discovered independently by early humans in many places tens of thousands of years before written history. The earliest textual evidence (the Rigveda's soma, roughly 1700 to 1100 BCE) and the earliest strong archaeological evidence (pottery residue from northern China, at least 7000 BCE) are geographically and chronologically unconnected, and neither can be treated as the drink's true point of origin.