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First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink To Stone Age

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Bianca
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« on: January 09, 2009, 11:40:09 am »









Gods and Grapes



The wild Eurasian grapevine (Vitis vinifera sylvestris) is found from Spain to Central Asia. Cultivars, or varieties bred from the vine, account for nearly all of the wine produced today.

McGovern is attempting to establish the origin of the earliest Neolithic viniculture—where grapevines were cultivated and winemaking developed. By comparing DNA from the wild grape with that of modern cultivars, McGovern and his colleagues hope to pinpoint the origin of domestication.

The scientist recently returned from an expedition to Turkey's Taurus Mountains near the headwaters of the Tigris River. There, he combed rugged river valleys in search of wild grapevines untouched by modern cultivation methods. McGovern was joined by José Vouillamoz, from Italy's Istituto Agrario di San Michele all'Adige in Trento, and Ali Ergül, from Turkey's Ankara University.

"We're looking in eastern Turkey, because that's where other plants were domesticated," McGovern said in a telephone interview before his trip. "We're going out there to collect wild grapevines with local cultivars, so we can see what the relationship is and maybe make a case that this is where the first domestication occurred."

One dramatic setting for the researchers' grapevine collecting was a deeply cut ravine below the site known as Nemrut Daghi. "A first-century B.C. ruler, Antiochus I Epiphanes, had statues of himself in the company of the gods hewn out of limestone on a mountaintop at about 7,000 feet [2,130 meters]," McGovern said.

The remote area includes the important Neolithic site of Çayönü. From this and other archaeological digs, McGovern collected pottery and stone fragments to test for ancient organic material—perhaps the residue of long-evaporated, locally produced wine.
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