http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/science/11wine.html?_r=3&src=tptw
Cave Drops Hints to Earliest Glass of Red By PAM BELLUCK Published: January 11, 2011 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. RSS Feed RSS Get Science News From The New York Times » 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.” A version of this article appeared in print on January 11, 2011, on page D3 of the New York edition. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
