Scientists say 8,000-year-old pottery fragments have revealed the earliest evidence of grape wine-making.<\/p>\n
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The earthenware jars containing residual wine compounds were found in two sites south of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, researchers said.<\/p>\n
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Some of the jars bore images of grape clusters and a man dancing.<\/p>\n
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Previously, the earliest evidence of wine-making was from pottery dating from about 7,000 years ago found in north-western Iran.<\/p>\n
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The latest finds were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).<\/p>\n
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“We believe this is the oldest example of the domestication of a wild-growing Eurasian grapevine solely for the production of wine,” said co-author Stephen Batiuk, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
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“Wine is central to civilisation as we know it in the West. As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies and society in the ancient Near East.”<\/p>\n
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The pottery jars were discovered in two Neolithic villages, called Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, about 50km (30 miles) south of Tbilisi, researchers said.<\/p>\n
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Telltale chemical signs of wine were discovered in eight jars, the oldest one dating from about 5,980 BC.<\/p>\n
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Large jars called qvevri, similar to the ancient ones, are still used for wine-making in Georgia, said David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum who helped lead the research.<\/p>\n
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Mr Batiuk said the wine was probably made in a similar way to the qvevri method today “where the grapes are crushed and the fruit, stems and seeds are all fermented together”.<\/p>\n
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Previously, the earliest evidence of grape wine-making had been found in the Zagros Mountains of Iran and dated to 5,400-5,000 BC.<\/p>\n
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In 2011, a wine press and fermentation jars from about 6,000 years ago were found in a cave in Armenia.<\/p>\n
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The world’s earliest non-grape based wine is believe to be a fermented alcoholic beverage of rice, honey and fruit found in China and dating to about 7,000 BC.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scientists say 8,000-year-old pottery fragments have revealed the earliest evidence of grape wine-making. The earthenware jars containing residual wine compounds were found in two sites south of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, researchers said. Some of the jars bore images of grape clusters and a man dancing. Previously, the earliest evidence of wine-making was from pottery dating from about 7,000 years ago found in north-western Iran. The latest finds were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “We believe this is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12129,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions\/12129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}