Beginning of viniculture in France
- Patrick E. McGoverna,1,
- Benjamin P. Luleyb,
- Nuria Rovirac,
- Armen Mirzoiand,
- Michael P. Callahane,
- Karen E. Smithf,
- Gretchen R. Halla,
- Theodore Davidsona, and
- Joshua M. Henkina
- aBiomolecular Archaeology Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA 19104;
- bDepartment of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637;
- cUniversité Paul Valéry-Montpellier 3, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5140, Lattes 34970, France;
- dScientific Services Division, Alcohol, and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), US Treasury, Beltsville, MD 20705;
- eSolar System Exploration Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Greenbelt, MD 20771; and
- fDepartment of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802
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Edited by Dolores R. Piperno, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Fairfax, Washington, DC, and approved May 1, 2013 (received for review September 21, 2012)
Abstract
Chemical analyses of ancient organic compounds absorbed into the pottery fabrics of imported Etruscan amphoras (ca. 500–475 B.C.) and into a limestone pressing platform (ca. 425–400 B.C.) at the ancient coastal port site of Lattara in southern France provide the earliest biomolecular archaeological evidence for grape wine and viniculture from this country, which is crucial to the later history of wine in Europe and the rest of the world. The data support the hypothesis that export of wine by ship from Etruria in central Italy to southern Mediterranean France fueled an ever-growing market and interest in wine there, which, in turn, as evidenced by the winepress, led to transplantation of the Eurasian grapevine and the beginning of a Celtic industry in France. Herbal and pine resin additives to the Etruscan wine point to the medicinal role of wine in antiquity, as well as a means of preserving it during marine transport.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mcgovern{at}sas.upenn.edu.
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Author contributions: P.E.M., B.P.L., A.M., M.P.C., K.E.S., and G.R.H. designed research; N.R., A.M., M.P.C., K.E.S., G.R.H., T.D., and J.M.H. performed research; P.E.M., B.P.L., N.R., A.M., M.P.C., K.E.S., G.R.H., and T.D. analyzed data; and P.E.M., B.P.L., A.M., M.P.C., K.E.S., and G.R.H. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1216126110/-/DCSupplemental.
