Vegetation and plant exploitation at Mentesh Tepe (Azerbaijan), 6th–3rd millennium BC initial results of the archaeobotanical study

Decaix, Alexia; Messager, Erwan; Tengberg, Margareta; Neef, Reinder; Lyonnet, Bertille; Guliyev, Farhad

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.02.050

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This is the case for three Neolithic and Chalcolithic (6th and 5th millennium BC) pips from Mentesh Tepe, Azerbaijan (Decaix and Bouby, unpubl. ), where Vitis charcoal was also found, proving the local presence of the vine since the SSC (Decaix et al 2016).…”

Section: Wine From Wild Grapevines?mentioning

confidence: 76%

Tracking the history of grapevine cultivation in Georgia by combining geometric morphometrics and ancient DNA

Bouby

Wales

Jalabadze

et al. 2020

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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The Near East and the Caucasus are commonly regarded as the original domestication centres of Vitis vinifera (grapevine), and the region continues to be home to a high diversity of wild and cultivated grapevines, particularly within Georgia. The earliest chemical evidence for wine making was recorded in Georgian Neolithic sites (6000-5800 BC) and grape pips, possibly of the domesticated morphotype, have been reported from several sites of about the same period. We performed geometric morphometric and palaeogenomic investigations of grape pip samples in order to identify the appearance of domesticated grapevine and explore the changes in cultivated diversity in relation to modern varieties. We systematically investigated charred and uncharred grape pip samples from Georgian archaeological sites. Their chronology was thoroughly assessed by direct radiocarbon dating. More than 500 grape pips from 14 sites from the Middle Bronze Age to modern times were selected for geometric morphometric studies. The shapes of the ancient pipe were compared to hundreds of modern wild individuals and cultivated varieties. Degraded DNA was isolated from three pips from two sites, converted to Illumina libraries, sequenced at approximately ten thousand SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) sites, and compared to a large 2 public database of grapevine diversity. The most ancient pip dates from the Middle Bronze Age (1900-1500 cal BC) and the domesticated morphotype is identified from ca. 1000 BC onwards. A great diversity of domesticated shapes was regularly seen in the samples. Most are close to modern cultivars from the Caucasian, southwest Asian and Balkan areas, which suggests that the modern local vine diversity is deeply rooted in early viticulture. DNA was successfully recovered from historic pips and genome-wide analyses found close parental relationships to modern Georgian cultivars.

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Section: Wine From Wild Grapevines?mentioning

confidence: 76%

Tracking the history of grapevine cultivation in Georgia by combining geometric morphometrics and ancient DNA

Bouby

Wales

Jalabadze

et al. 2020

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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“…To date, the recovery of single carbonized grape pips appears to be the rule at SSC sites, including Mentesh Tepe (wild morphology; ref. 30 ), Göytepe (uncertain morphology; ref. 29 ), and Haci Elamxanli Tepe (uncertain morphology; ref.…”

Section: Archaeobotanical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only Aratashen in Armenia, with two pips (wild), has yielded more than one ( 31 ). Carbonized grape wood at Mentesh Tepe ( 30 ) points to grapevines growing at the site or in its environs. None of these specimens has been radiocarbon-dated, however.…”

Section: Archaeobotanical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus

McGovern

Jalabadze

Batiuk

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

202

147

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SignificanceThe earliest biomolecular archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for grape wine and viniculture from the Near East, ca. 6,000–5,800 BC during the early Neolithic Period, was obtained by applying state-of-the-art archaeological, archaeobotanical, climatic, and chemical methods to newly excavated materials from two sites in Georgia in the South Caucasus. Wine is central to civilization 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. This wine culture subsequently spread around the globe. Viniculture illustrates human ingenuity in developing horticultural and winemaking techniques, such as domestication, propagation, selection of desirable traits, wine presses, suitable containers and closures, and so on.

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“…At Dikha-Gudzuba in Georgia, mentioned in Lisitsina and Prishchepenko (1977), Panicum grains are supposed to have been identified, but this cereal is absent according to N. Rusishvili, who completed the archaeobotanical analysis of the site 34 . This critical review is strongly supported by current analyses: beside wheat and barley, Neolithic sites recently excavated revealed pulses (lentil, grass pea and bitter vetch) and flax but none of them uncovered any millet, except wild Setaria 25 , 26 , 34 , 35 . Millets are also absent in archaeobotanical spectrum from recently excavated Kura-Araxes sites dated from Early Bronze Age 36 , 37 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 65%

The place of millet in food globalization during Late Prehistory as evidenced by new bioarchaeological data from the Caucasus

Martin

Messager

Bedianashvili

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Two millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, were domesticated in northern China, around 6000 BC. Although its oldest evidence is in Asia, possible independent domestication of these species in the Caucasus has often been proposed. To verify this hypothesis, a multiproxy research program (Orimil) was designed to detect the first evidence of millet in this region. It included a critical review of the occurrence of archaeological millet in the Caucasus, up to Antiquity; isotopic analyses of human and animal bones and charred grains; and radiocarbon dating of millet grains from archaeological contexts dated from the Early Bronze Age (3500–2500 BC) to the 1st Century BC. The results show that these two cereals were cultivated during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA), around 2000–1800 BC, especially Setaria italica which is the most ancient millet found in Georgia. Isotopic analyses also show a significant enrichment in 13C in human and animal tissues, indicating an increasing C4 plants consumption at the same period. More broadly, our results assert that millet was not present in the Caucasus in the Neolithic period. Its arrival in the region, based on existing data in Eurasia, was from the south, without excluding a possible local domestication of Setaria italica.

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Vegetation and plant exploitation at Mentesh Tepe (Azerbaijan), 6th–3rd millennium BC initial results of the archaeobotanical study

Cited by 21 publications

References 30 publications

Tracking the history of grapevine cultivation in Georgia by combining geometric morphometrics and ancient DNA

Tracking the history of grapevine cultivation in Georgia by combining geometric morphometrics and ancient DNA

Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus

The place of millet in food globalization during Late Prehistory as evidenced by new bioarchaeological data from the Caucasus

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