Hostname: page-component-669899f699-qzcqf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T04:26:47.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Grape-pressings from northern Greece: the earliest wine in the Aegean?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

S.M. Valamoti ,
M. Mangafa ,
Ch. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki  and
D. Malamidou
S.M. Valamoti
Affiliation:
1Department of Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54 124 Thessaloniki, Greece (Email: [email protected])
M. Mangafa
Affiliation:
2Archaeologist/Archaeobotanist (deceased 1998)
Ch. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki
Affiliation:
3Honorary Curator of Antiquities, Archaeological Museum of Kavala, Greece (Email: [email protected])
D. Malamidou
Affiliation:
4Curator of Antiquities, Archaeological Museum of Kavala, Greece (Email: [email protected])
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Houses burnt down at the Neolithic site of Dikili Tash in northern Greece preserved the remains of wild grapes and figs. The charred shapes showed that there was a pile of grape pips with skins – clear evidence for the extraction of juice. The authors argue that the juice was probably used to make wine – towards the end of the fifth millennium BC the earliest so far from the Aegean. The occupants of the houses also had two-handled cups, providing another clue to consumption of a special kind.

Keywords

AegeanMacedoniaGreecewinegrapesviticulture
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 311 , 1 March 2007 , pp. 54 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

References

Andreou, S. 2003. H Μυκηναϊκή κεραμική και oι κοινωνίες της κεντρική ς Μακεδονίας κατά την Ύστερη Εποχή του Χαλκού (Mycenean pottery and societies of central Macedonia during the Late Bronze Age), in The Periphery of the Mycenean World (Proceedings of the 2nd Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Lamia 1999). Athens: Greek Ministry of Culture.Google Scholar
Belgiorno, M. R. 2005. dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050523/wine.html.Google Scholar
Bottema, S. 1982 (1985). Palynological investigations in Greece with special reference to pollen as an indicator of human activity. Palaeohistoria 24: 257–89.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. 2001. Theorizing the feast: rituals of consumption, commensal politics and power in African contexts, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on Food, Politics and Power: 65–114. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Foxhall, L. 1998. Snapping up the unconsidered trifles: the use of agricultural residues in ancient Greek and Roman farming. Environmental Archaeology 1: 35–40.Google Scholar
French, D. H. 1971. An experiment in water-sieving. Anatolian Studies 21: 59–64.Google Scholar
Gilman, A. 1981. The development of social stratification in Bronze Age Europe. Current Anthropology 22: 1–8.Google Scholar
Gorny, R. L. 1995. Viticulture in ancient Anatolia, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: 133–74. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. 1996. Wine, oil and the dialectics of power in Bronze Age Crete: a review of the evidence. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 15: 1–32.Google Scholar
Koukouli-Chrysanthaki, ch., Treuil, R. & Malamidou, D.. 1997. D. Prehistoric settlement Philippoi/Dikili Tash: ten years of excavation. AEMTH 10 β: 681–704.Google Scholar
Logothetis, V. 1962. Les Vignes Sauvages (Vitis vinifera L. ssp. silvestris Gmel.) en tant que matériel primitif viticole en Grèce. Scientific Annals of the Arisitotle University Department of Agriculture and Forest: 1–43.Google Scholar
Logothetis, V. 1974. Contribution of the grape vine and wine in Greek and Eastern Mediterranean civilization. Scientific Annals of the University of Thessaloniki 17: 1–286.Google Scholar
Mangafa, M. & Kotsakis, K.. 1996. A new method for the identification of wild and cultivated charred grape seeds. Journal of Archaeological Science 23: 409–18.Google Scholar
Mangafa, M., Kotsakis, K. & Andreou, S.. 1998. Aμπελoκαλλιέpγεια στην προϊστορική Mακεδoνίά (Viticulture in Prehistoric Macedonia: evidence from Prehistoric Toumba Thessalonikis), in Aμπλooιυική Iστoρία στo Xώρo της Mακεδονίας και της Θράκης (History of Viticulture and Wine in Macedonia and Thrace): 158–69. Athens: ETBA Publications.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E. 1995. Introduction, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: ix–xv. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
McGovern, P. E. & Mitchel, R. H.. 1995. 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. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
McGovern, P., Glusker, D. L., Exner, L. J. & Voight, M. M.. 1996. Neolithic resinated wine. Nature 381: 480–81.Google Scholar
Olmo, H. P. 1995. The origin and domestication of the Vinifera grape, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: 31–43. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. 1995. Wine and Viticulture in the Linear A and B texts of the Bronze Age Aegean, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: 269–85. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Pappa, M., Halstead, P., Kotsakis, K. & Urem-Kotsou, D.. 2004. Evidence for large-scale feasting at Late Neolithic Makriyalos, N Greece, in Halstead, P. & Barrett, J. (ed.) Food, Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece: 16–44. (Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 5). Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1972. The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium BC. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., Gimbutas, M. & Elster, E. (ed.). 1986. Excavations at Sitagroi. Los Angeles (CA): (Monumenta Archaeologica 13) The Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. 1972. Appendix V: The plant remains, in Warren, P. (ed.) Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete, (BSA suppl. 7): 315–17. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. 1973. Palaeoethnobotany. The Prehistoric Food Plants of the Near East and Europe. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. 1995. Palaeoethnobotanical finds of Vitis from Greece, in McGovern, P. E., Fleming, S. J. & Katz, S. H. (ed.) The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: 255–67. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. 2003. Grains, seeds, and fruits from Prehistoric Sitagroi, in Elster, E. S. & Renfrew, C. (ed.) Prehistoric Sitagroi: Excavations in Northeast Greece, 1968-1970. Volume 2: The Final Report (Monumenta Archaeologica 20): 1–29. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Rivera Nunez, D. & Walker, M. J.. 1989. A review of palaeobotanical findings of early Vitis in the Mediterranean and of the origins of cultivated grape-vines, with special reference to new pointers to Prehistoric exploitation in the western Mediterranean. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 61: 205–37.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1987. Cups That Cheered, in Waldren, W. H. & Kennard, R. C. (ed.) Bell Beakers of the Western Mediterranean (British Archaeological Reports SS331 i): 81–114. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1999. Cash-crops before cash: organic consumables and trade, in Gosden, C. & Hather, J. (ed.) The Prehistory of Food, Appetites for change: 13–34. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singleton, V. L. 1995. 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. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Reimer, P. J.. 1993. Radiocarbon Calibration Program Rev. 4.3. Radiocarbon 35: 215–30.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P. J., Bard, E., Beck, J. W., Burr, G. S., Hughen, K. A., Kromer, B., McCormac, F. G., van der Plicht, J. & Spurk, M.. 1998. INTCAL98 Radiocarbon Age Calibration, 24 000–0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 40 (3): 1041–83.Google Scholar
Tzedakis, Y. & Martlew, H. (ed.). 1999. Minoans and Myceneans – Flavours of their Time. Athens: Greek Ministry of Culture.Google Scholar
Valamoti, S.-M. 2004. Plants and People in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Northern Greece (British Archaeological Reports IS 1258). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wijmstra, T. A. 1969. Palynology of the first 30 metres of a 120m deep section in northern Greece. Acta Bot. Neerl. 18: 511–27.Google Scholar
Wright, J. C. 2004. The Mycenaean Feast. Hesperia 73: 133–78.Google Scholar
Zohary, D. 1995. 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. New York: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar