Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T08:42:48.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sweeter than wine? The use of the grape in early western Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Naomi F. Miller
Naomi F. Miller*
Affiliation:
*University of Pennsylvania Museum, Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA (Email: nmiller0@sas.upenn.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Emotional news for lovers of a dry white wine. The blissful Hippocrene was composed from wild grapes from the sixth millennium BC in the lands of its natural habitat. But, as the author shows, the cultivation, domestication and selective breeding of the grape following in the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age was aimed primarily at the enjoyment of its sweetness.

Keywords

western AsiaNeolithicgrapeviticulturewine
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 318 , December 2008 , pp. 937 - 946
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bottema, S. 1986. A Late Quaternary pollen diagram from Lake Urmia (northwestern Iran). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 47: 241–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bottema, S. & Woldring, H.. 1990. Anthropogenic indicators in the pollen record of the eastern Mediterranean, in Bottema, S., Entjes-Nieborg, G. & Zeist, W. van (ed.) Man's role in the shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean landscape: 231–64. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Boulton, N. & Heron, C.. 2000. Chemical detection of ancient wine, in Nicholson, P. T. & Shaw, I. (ed.) Ancient Egyptian materials and technologies: 399–403. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, C. R. 2003. Grapes or raisins? An Early Bronze Age larder under the microscope. Antiquity 77: 345–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costantini, L. 1977. Le piante, in Tucci, G. (ed.) La città bruciata del deserto salato: 159–71. Venice: Erizzo.Google Scholar
Harrison, N. 1995. Preliminary archaeobotanical findings fromn Anau, 1994 excavations, in Hiebert, F. T. (ed.) Progress report, Harvard-IuTAKE excavations at Anau South, Turkmenistan: 28–35. Report on file, MASCA, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Iltis, H. H. 2000. Homeotic sexual translocations and the origin of maize (Zea mays, Poaceae): a new look at an old problem. Economic Botany 54(1): 7–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kislev, M. E., Hartmann, A. & Galili, E.. 2004. Archaeobotanical and archaeoentomological evidence from a well at Atlit-Yam indicates colder, more humid climate on the Israeli coast during the PPNC period. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 1301–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, H. 1999. Vor- und frühgeschichtliche Weinreben – wild oder angebaut? Trierer Zeitschrift 62: 151–3.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E. 2001. The origins of the Tomb U-j Syro-Palestinian type jars as determined by neutron activation analysis, in Hartung, U. (ed.) Umm el-Qaab II, Importkeramik aus dem Friedhof U in Abydos (Umm el-Qaab) und die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 4. Jahrtausend v. Chr.: 407–16. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E. 2003. Ancient wine: the search for the origins of viniculture. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E. & Michel, R.H.. 1994. The analytical and archaeological challenge of detecting ancient wine: two case studies from the ancient Near East, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The origins and ancient history of wine: 57–65. Philadelphia (PA): Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E., Glusker, D. L., Exner, L. J. & Voigt, M. M.. 1996. Neolithic resinated wine. Nature 381: 480–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, N. F. 1982. Economy and environment of Malyan, a third millennium BC urban center in southern Iran. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Miller, N. F. 1984. Vegetation and plant use at Kurban Höyük. Anatolica 13: 85-9, 119–20.Google Scholar
Miller, N. F. 1991. The Near East, in Zeist, W. van, Wasylikowa, K. & Behre, K.-E. (ed.) Progress in Old World palaeoethnobotany: 133–60. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Miller, N. F. 2003. The use of plants at Anau North, in Hiebert, F. (ed.) A Central Asian village at the dawn of civilization, excavations at Anau, Turkmenistan: 127–38. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Museum.Google Scholar
Miller, N. F. 2007. Charcoal from Godin Tepe, Iran, 1969-1973. MASCA Ethnobotanical Laboratory report 43. On file, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Neef, R. 1997. Status and perspectives of archaeobotanical research in Jordan, in Gebel, H.G.K., Kafafi, Z., A. & Rollefson, G. O. (ed.) The prehistory of Jordan II: perspectives from 1997: 601–9. Berlin: Ex Oriente.Google Scholar
Powell, M. 1995. Wine and the vine in ancient Mesopotamia: the cuneiform evidence, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The origins and ancient history of wine: 97–122. Philadelphia (PA): Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Riehl, S. n.d. Archaeobotanical database of Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern sites. University of Tuebingen Archaeology Data Service (www.cuminium.de/archeobotany/).Google Scholar
Singleton, V. L. 1994. An enologist's commentary on ancient wines, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The origins and ancient history of wine: 67–77. Philadelphia (PA): Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Smalley, J. & Blake, M.. 2003. Sweet beginnings, stalk sugar and the domestication of maize. Current Anthropology 44: 675–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thiébault, S. 1989. A note on the ancient vegetation of Baluchistan based on charcoal analysis of the latest periods from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, in Frifelt, K. & Sørensen, P. (ed.) South Asian archaeology 1985: papers from the 8th international conference of the Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe, held at Moesgaard Museum, Denmark, 1-5 July 1985: 186–8. London: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Turner, S. D. & Brown, A. G.. 2004. Vitis pollen dispersal in and from organic vineyards I: pollen trap and soil pollen data. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 129(3): 117–32. [pdf accessed online, 21 February 2008]. DOI:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2003.12.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valamoti, S. M., Mangafa, M., Koukouli-Chrysanthaki, Ch. & Malamidou, D.. 2007. Grape-pressings from northern Greece: the earliest wine in the Aegean? Antiquity 81: 54–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Zeist, W. & Bottema, S.. 1977. Palynological investigations in western Iran. Palaeohistoria 19: 19–85.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W. & Woldring, H.. 1978. A postglacial pollen diagramfromLake Van in east Anatolia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 26: 249–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willcox, G. 1991. Exploitation des espèces ligneuses au Proche-Orient: données anthracologiques. Paléorient 17/2: 117–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willcox, G. 1999. Charcoal analysis and Holocene vegetation history in southern Syria. Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 711–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yasuda, Y., Kitagawa, H. & Nakagawa, T.. 2000. The earliest record of major anthropogenic deforestation in the Ghab valley, northwest Syria: a palynological study. Quaternary International 73/74: 127–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohary, D. 1994. The domestication of the grapevine Vitis vinifera L. in the Near East, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The origins and ancient history of wine: 23–30. Philadelphia (PA): Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Zohary, D. & Hopf, M.. 1974. Domestication of plants in the Old World. Second edition 1993. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Zohary, M. 1973. Geobotanical foundations of the Middle East. Stuttgart: Fischer.Google Scholar