Scientists Find 6,100-Year-Old Winemaking Operation
Archaeologists found a 6,100-year-old "winemaking operation" in the same Armenian cave where they found a 5,500-year-old shoe. You know what that means? Humans have been making wine for 600 years longer than they have been wearing shoes!
Well, okay, it doesn't actually mean that, at all. But would you be so surprised? Human beings love wine! And they loved it some 6,100 years ago:
Stefan K. Estreicher, a professor at Texas Tech University and author of "Wine: From Neolithic Times to the 21st Century," said the Armenian discovery shows "how important it was to them" to make wine because "they spent a lot of time and effort to build a facility to use only once a year" when grapes were harvested.
The wine was probably used for ritual purposes, as burial sites were seen nearby in the cave. [Excavation co-director] Dr. [Gregory] Areshian said at least eight bodies had been found so far, including a child, a woman, bones of elderly men and, in ceramic vessels, skulls of three adolescents (one still containing brain tissue).
The winery consists of "a vat for fermenting, a press, storage jars, a clay bowl and a drinking cup made from an animal horn." It's the earliest production facility yet found, but it's not the oldest evidence of wine consumption; residue in jars found in northwest Iran suggests that winemaking dates back at least 7,400 years. Even so, its sophistication could mean that earlier winemaking was more elaborate than previously thought.
And there's something kind of nice about that, isn't there? The thought that some seven millennia ago, human beings were doing the same thing you are? Sure, they harvested, fermented and pressed all their own wine, while you just smuggled yours out of the 7-11 under your coat. And they likely drank their red wine as part of an elaborate funeral ritual, while you drink yours as part of your far less elaborate "watching King of Queens reruns" ritual. But the important part is this: 7,000 years ago, as today, human beings were getting tanked on cheap red wine.
[NYT]
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It's good to know they were doing a primitive version of us walking out of a convenience store with bottles of beer in our socks and the bottles angled on the right side so the cashier wouldn't see our teenage asses walking out of the store with a beer they wouldn't sell us.Some things never change... Reply
Theories are that we became agricultural societies firstly to have the raw product for our get high. Reply
Wine is for the people who like fancy shmancy new things, like the iPad and Prius. Beer is for people who like classy old shtuff, like 7,000 year old stuff (or older - as old as the dawn of civilization).... [beeradvocate.com] And if you're curious what it may have tasted like, Dogfish Head makes a couple brews based on the ancient Egyptian and Chinese recipes. ReplyEdited by hilikusopus at 01/11/11 12:29 PM
If they find a 6000 year old cardboard box with wine residue inside, I'll just have to conclude that I haven't really evolved that much at all. Reply
Well of course - they had to invent shoes to go to the store for more wine.
No shoes/no servive." Replytoniperdido promoted this comment
I wonder when mixed drinks were invented. I'm sure some bright stone age guy thought of it first, as a way to get cave girls drunk and easy. Reply
". . . . same Armenian cave where they found a 5,500-year-old shoe."This clearly demonstrates that the art of getting drunk and losing footwear has been in practice for a very long time. Reply
achilleselbow promoted this comment
This isn't really surprising.
First you need the wine bar to go to.
Then you need the little cordovan pumps to wear there. ReplyEdited by DoctorNine at 01/11/11 9:18 AM
If I was alive back then, I would be drunk all the time. I can barely handle all the responsibilities I have today, and I can order anything I want online and have it delivered. Reply
Scientists believe that the wine making operation was suddenly abandoned by the ancient vintners when they discovered that something called "Two Buck Chuck" was available for barter from a local trader named "Joe". ReplyAnotherBob promoted this comment
New evidence suggests ancient civilizations have been making forms of alcohol since the dawn of the neolithic revolution some 10,000 years ago.Also, being a bit of a wino myself; here is a fun fact! Did you know that the earliest form of "corks" was a layer of olive oil floated a top wine to preserve it from oxidation? Reply
I'm not sure it is safe to draw the conclusion that because they coincidentally buried bodies in the same cave they made wine that the wine was used for ceremonial purposes. Maybe it was, I mean I've been to a lot of wakes and funerals where wine was served, but I've also been to a lot of other parties where wine was served and no one was dead. Maybe, just maybe they figured out that wine doesn't spoil as fast in a cave, and hey, we have this cave where we buried some people, let's stuff the wine down there. Or vice-versa. Reply
This is crazy. Next you'll probably try to convince me that people also enjoyed sports or sex 7,000 years ago. Reply
I wish I lived in an area where 7-11's sold alcohol but no, PA has special stores for liquor and special stores to buy beer. Reply
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Two of my favorite subjects wine and history
Happy New Year! I’ve just finished reading final papers from 
Alyssa and David wrote very different papers about wine and social media. Social media refers to electronic communities that link people in flexible arrangements and allow them to interact and to share information of various sorts. Alyssa examined Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere to find the potential of each to forge durable wine-based interest groups.