People Of Ar – Wine-Making Facility – 6,100 years old in-armenia – Wine-Making Facility – 6,100 years old in-armenia
Art-A-Tsolum – PREVIOUS ARTICLE:
DECEMBER 17, 2014 – Archaeology:
Wine-Making Facility – 6,100 years old
In a cave in southern Armenia a team of international archaeologists have unearthed a wine press for stomping grapes. Fermentation and storage vessels, drinking cups, and withered grape vines, skins, and seeds have also been discovered at the site. The installation suggests the Copper Age vintners pressed their wine the old-fashioned way, using their feet. Juice from the trampled grapes drained into the vat, where it was left to ferment.
The wine was then stored in jars—the cool, dry conditions of the cave would have made a perfect wine cellar. Ancient-wine expert Patrick E.
McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, called the discovery “important and unique, because it indicates large-scale wine production, which would imply, I think, that the grape had already been domesticated.” The apparent discovery that winemaking using domesticated grapevines emerged in what’s now Armenia appears to dovetail with previous DNA studies of cultivated grape varieties, McGovern said. Armenian Highlands are considered the birthplace of viticulture.
It is believed the wine has been used for religious or ritualistic purposes. The discovery is important, the study team says, because winemaking is seen as a significant social and technological innovation among prehistoric societies. Vine growing, for instance, heralded the emergence of new, sophisticated forms of agriculture.
They had to learn and understand the cycles of growth of the plant. They had to understand how much water was needed, how to prevent fungi from damaging the harvest, and how to deal with flies that live on the grapes. Chemical analysis of the residue has dated the winery to 4,100 BCE. “This is the earliest, most reliable evidence of wine production,” said archaeologist Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Source: 1) http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/YJASC_2685.pdf 2) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110111-oldest-wine-press-making-winery-armenia-science-ucla/
peopleofar.com/2014/12/17/10-worlds-oldest-things-from-armenia/
