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| From the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01[...]cience/11wine.html?ref=science January 11, 2011 Cave Drops Hints to Earliest Glass of Red By PAM BELLUCK Scientists have reported finding the oldest known winemaking operation, about 6,100 years old, complete with a vat for fermenting, a press, storage jars, a clay bowl and a drinking cup made from an animal horn. Grape seeds, dried pressed grapes, stems, shriveled grapevines and residue were also found, and chemical analyses indicate red wine was produced there. The discovery, published online Tuesday in The Journal of Archaeological Science, occurred in a cave in Armenia where the team of American, Armenian and Irish archaeologists recently found the oldest known leather shoe. The shoe, a laced cowhide moccasin possibly worn by a woman with a size-7 foot, is about 5,500 years old. These discoveries and other artifacts found in the cave provide a window into the Copper Age, or Late Chalcolithic period, when humans are believed to have invented the wheel and domesticated horses, among other innovations. Relatively few objects have been found, but the cave, designated Areni-1 and discovered in 1997, is proving a perfect time capsule because prehistoric artifacts have been preserved under layers of sheep dung and a white crust on the cave’s karst limestone walls. “We keep finding more interesting things,” said Gregory Areshian, assistant director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the co-director of the excavation, which is financed by the National Geographic Society and other institutions. “Because of the conditions of the cave, things are wonderfully preserved.” Experts called the find a watershed. “I see it as the earliest winemaking facility that’s ever been found,” said Patrick E. McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, which is not involved in the project. “It shows a fairly large-scale operation, and it fits very well with the evidence that we already have about the tradition of making wine.” Some of that evidence was identified by Dr. McGovern and colleagues, who determined that residue in jars found at a northwestern Iran site called Hajji Firuz suggested that wine was being made as early as 7,400 years ago. But “that’s just a number of wine jars that we identified,” said Dr. McGovern, author of “Uncorking the Past.” “Just how elaborate this one is suggests that there was earlier production” of a more sophisticated nature. Stefan K. Estreicher, a professor at Texas Tech University and author of “Wine: From Neolithic Times to the 21st Century,” said the Armenian discovery shows “how important it was to them” to make wine because “they spent a lot of time and effort to build a facility to use only once a year” when grapes were harvested. The wine was probably used for ritual purposes, as burial sites were seen nearby in the cave. Dr. Areshian said at least eight bodies had been found so far, including a child, a woman, bones of elderly men and, in ceramic vessels, skulls of three adolescents (one still containing brain tissue). Wine may have been drunk to honor or appease the dead, and was “maybe also sprinkled on these burials,” he said. The cave, with several chambers, appeared to be used for rituals by high-status people, although some people, possibly caretakers, lived up front, where the shoe was found. Researchers have also found two “dark holes, essentially jars filled with dried fruit, including dried grapes, prunes, walnuts and probably the oldest evidence of cultivating almonds,” Dr. Areshian said. And there is evidence of a 6,000-year-old “metallurgical operation,” including smelted copper and a mold to cast copper ingots, he said. Mitchell S. Rothman, an anthropologist and Chalcolithic expert at Widener University not involved in the expedition, said these discoveries show “the industry and technology developing,” and “the very inklings of some kind of social differentiation.” It is “the sort of thing where ritual becomes not only part of the desire to appreciate the gods, but a way in which the people involved in that become somehow special,” added Dr. Rothman, who has visited the cave. The winemaking discovery began when graduate students found grape seeds in the cave’s central chamber in 2007, and culminated last fall. A shallow, thick-rimmed, 3-by-3 1/2-foot clay basin appears to be a wine press where people stomped grapes with their feet. The basin is positioned so juice would tip into a two-foot-deep vat. Scientists verified the age and function with radiocarbon dating, botanical analysis to confirm the grapes were cultivated, and analysis of residue for malvidin, which gives red wine its color. Dr. Areshian said scientists are undertaking “a very extensive DNA analysis of the grape seeds” from the cave and “our botanists want to plant some of the seeds.” From Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A0XS20110111 At 6,000 Years Old, Wine Press Is Oldest Yet Found YEREVAN (Reuters)—Archeologists have unearthed the oldest wine-making facility ever found, using biochemical techniques to identify a dry red vintage made about 6,000 years ago in what is now southern Armenia. The excavation paints a picture of a complex society where mourners tasted a special vintage made at a caveside cemetery, the researchers reported on Jan. 11 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. “This is the world’s oldest known installation to make wine,” Gregory Areshian of the University of California Los Angeles, who helped lead the study, said in a telephone interview. Carbon dating showed a desiccated grape vine found near a wine press was grown around 4000 BC, his team reported. This makes it 1,000 years older than any other wine-making facility discovered, the team from Armenia, the United States, and Ireland reported. The team found the world’s oldest leather shoe, about 5,500 years old, at the same cave complex last year. The wine press would have held a few gallons of juice and crushed grapes, likely working with the time-honored technique of barefoot stomping, Areshian said. “This was a relatively small installation related to the ritual inside the cave. For daily consumption they would have had much larger wine presses in the regular settlement,” said Areshian, who was deputy prime minister in the first government of the independent Republic of Armenia in 1991. Chemical traces point to grape juice and, given the lack of refrigeration, the juice would certainly have been fermented into wine, Areshian said. “We also know that still, in the villages in the vicinity, the culture of wine is very old and traditional,” he said. The rich red wines produced there are merlots and cabernet sauvignons, he said. The expedition, paid for in part by the National Geographic Society, also uncovered copper processing equipment. Areshian said the team would detail those findings later. The cave complex, known as Areni-1, is in the Little Caucasus Mountains near Armenia’s southern border with Iran. The press itself is a shallow clay basin about three feet (one meter) in diameter, surrounded by grape seeds and dried-out grape vines. The team found grave mounds nearby and obsidian tools—indicating some complicated trade was going on. The closest source of obsidian, a black glassy mineral, is 35 to 45 miles away, a three-day walk, Areshian said. “We can say that this was a quite complex society formed by multiple communities,” he said. (Editing by John O’Callaghan) Reply | with quote | Posted by Zariadris 12th January 2011ce 15:50 |
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