Grape Pips from Etruscan and Roman Cetamura del Chianti: On Stratigraphy, Literary Sources and Pruning Hooks

Recently an article appeared raising some issues about the interpretation of grape pips that were excavated at Cetamura del Chianti by the present writer (2012-14). This commentary makes suggestions concerning the arguments in that article with reference to 1) stratigraphy at the site; 2) literary sources on Etruscan viticulture; and 3) the use of the pruning hook by the Etruscans. The present article makes a contribution to the study of Etruscan viticulture by assembling an appendix on actual pruning hooks that have been discovered in Italy dating from the Late Bronze Age down to the second century B. C. E., as well as an appendix on representations of a youth holding the pruning hook in Etruscan art, mainly from the fourth and third centuries B. C. E.

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

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.

The Macroscopic Plant Remains from Euesperides (Benghazi): an interim report

Recent excavations at the Greco-Libyan site of Euesperides, Benghazi, have included a sampling programme for the retrieval of macroscopic plant remains. Preliminary results are now available and help to shed some light on the economy of the site between the sixth and the third centuries BC. Barley is the principal cereal crop recorded, while both hulled and free-threshing wheats are present. Fruit remains generally dominate the samples and include frequent seeds of grape and fig. The grape pips are of interest in that they appear to be morphologically more wild than cultivated. It is thought that they may be of a variety which does not conform with the characteristics of better known northern Mediterranean varieties of grape.

Charred grain from late bronze age Gla, Boiotia

Excavation of the late bronze age destruction of building complex H in the ‘agora’ at Gla revealed widespread traces of charred grain and grape pips. Samples from room H1 contained seeds identified as einkorn (Triticum monococcum L.). This material appears to be unique in Greece in consisting predominantly of grains from two-seeded spikelets of einkorn. It is uncertain whether the lack of chaff and weed seeds in these samples reflects partial preservation and recovery of grain in long-term storage, or represents fully threshed and sieved grain ready to be prepared for consumption

Vitis pips in Neolithic Sweden

Antiquity reported, three years ago, a grape pip securely dated to the British Neolithic. Here are brought together reliable finds of grape pips from the Neolithic of Scandinavia — yet further from the Mediterranean warmth where the vine is comfortable. How they got to the north — by an early passion for viticulture in an unpromising climate? in a precocious long-distance exchange of sultanas? — is an intriguing question

The grape (Vitis vinifera L.) in the Neolithic of Britain

Southern England, especially after yet another miserably wet summer, seems a surprising place to find neolithic grape-pips – at least by comparison with the sunnier places like southern France and Greece where early records of both wild and domesticated grapes have been reported. But here is a find of a grape-pip from neolithic Dorset.Since seeds and grains have in the past proved intrusive even into deposits that seemed stratigraphically secure, an uncomfortable choice had to be made after the identification: to preserve the pip, leaving its date unproven; or to make a radiocarbon determination on the pip and so to destroy it in securing evidence of its date. The second option was taken, which is why this report is on a pip which no longer exists.