Iran: A vitis vinifera conquest on its journey to the Far East

Dong, et al., reports on a dispersal of the vitis vinifera CG1 cultivar in four directions from its domestication point in western Asia, as illustrated in the map below.

High-Level view of the early stages of vitis vinifera
distribution from the Western Asia Domestication
Center (after Dong, et al.)

I have previously detailed hypotheses as to how the cultivar spread into Anatolia and across Europe and North Africa, with reports on the Caucasus and the Far East in the offing. Before addressing the latter endpoints, however, I will cover the evidence of transit through Iran, the point of divergence for the cultivar's onward journeys.

According to the authors, the dual domestications occurred 11,000 years ago. The Little Ice Age had ended by this time and the world was transitioning from the Pleistocene to the Holocene Epoch. 

The cold, dry climate associated with the Younger Dryas (12,800 BP - 11,600 BP) led to a rapid reduction in the size of the lushest vegetation belts and reduction in yields of natural stands of C3 plants such as cereals. 

There was  rapid return of wetter weather post the Younger Dryas and this led to the expansion of numerous lakes and ponds and cultivation of annual crops along the shorelines. The first large villages began to appear (up to 2.5 ha) and they relied on cultivated barley and wheat or "their wild progenitors." 

Neolithic farming communities thrived under the favorable climate conditions of the Early Holocene and expanded "along the Levantine Corridor into Anatolia and neighboring regions." This, then, was the first movement of the cultivated grapevine outside of its birthplace. 

Post-Younger-Dryas warming took 1000 years to reach Iran and another 1000 years to reach the heart of Central Asia. Cereal grasses and trees followed the path of this warming; as did agriculture. The Neolithic -- the period of the origins and early development of agricultural economies -- launched in the Levant around 11,000 years ago and was evident in Iran during the period 10,000 BP - 7500 BP.

Within Iran, Neolithisation did not occur in one fell swoop. Rather, it was evidenced as "a gradual unfolding of multiple episodes of Neolithisation producing patterns of change, continuity and adaptation over several millenia." The chart below illustrates the unfolding of Neolithisation in Iran.

Human groups in Iran's Zagros Mountains developed autonomously -- in relation to the Levant -- during the beginning of the Holocene, with local domestication of goats and early stage agriculture based on barley. The material culture has been confirmed by DNA studies which show that humans from the Zagros and Levant were "strongly differentiated genetically and were each descended from local hunter-gatherers." 

There were a number of core areas that were "large enough to have fostered distinct and thriving societies throughout the Neolithic and beyond":

• Northern, central, and southern Zagros
• Khuzistan lowland
• Southern Iran
• Northeastern Kopet Dag

Of the above, the Khuzistan lowland has "the longest continuous sequence of Neolithic occupation" and the "oldest substantial evidence for agriculture and animal husbandry in Iran." Given our assertion of a nexus between the adoption of agriculture and the adoption of grape cultivation, and the proximity of Khuzistan to the Fertile Crescent, it is quite likely that grape vines were cultivated in Khuzistan at some time in the Neolithic. And that assertion is bolstered by archaeological findings at Hajji Firuj, a Northern Zagros archaeological site which was occupied between 7900 and 7500 BP.

Hajji Firuz was a small village of single-family dwellings with an economy based on a mix of farming and herding, with the latter potentially requiring seasonal migration. The dates of occupation suggest that agriculture and herding at this location was relatively late when compared to Central Zagros and the Khuzistan lowlands. The location of the site is illustrated on the map below.

Red oval highlights archaeological sites where proof
 of winemaking in ancient Iran (Persia) was unearthed. 

Hajji Firuz Tepe was the subject of an archaeological excavation in 1968 at which five 2.5 gallon (9 liter) jars were found embedded in an earthen floor along a wall of a Neolithic mud brick building.  Two of these jars had a yellowish residue on the bottom which, after being subjected to infrared liquid chromatography and wet chemical analysis, proved to be a combination of calcium tartrate and terebinth tree resin.  Tartaric acid in the amounts found can only be associated with grapes and the amount of wine that would be housed in the five containers would be much more than required for a single family's use.  Clay stoppers that perfectly fit the openings at the top of the clay jars were found in close proximity to the jars and was assumed to have been used to prevent the contents from turning to vinegar.  These factors led the archaeologists to tag this site as a wine-production facility -- playfully called "Chateau" Hajji Firuz by Dr. McGovern. As wines in Greece even today are resinated, the assumption is that resin was added to Neolithic wines either as a preservative or for medicinal purposes.

Jar from Hajji Firuz Tepe
(Source: alaintruong.com)

The work done by the McGovern team clearly shows the use/consumption of wine within Neolithic Iran. Given that the domestication of vitis vinifera fell within the bounds of the Fertile Crescent, and that the southwestern part of Iran also fell within the bounds of that construct, its transit route into Iran becomes clearer.

Pottery-making in Iran has a history dating back to the early 7th millennium with the advent of agriculture giving rise to the baking of clay and the making of utensils. The use of clay jars for the storage of wine at Hajji Firuz Tepe is, therefore, a temporal fit.

From Iran, vitis vinifera CG1 made its way to the Caucasus and Central Asia. I will cover the former in my next post on the topic.

Bibliography

Saffaid Alibaigi and A. Salomiyan, The Archaeological landscape of the Neolithic period in the western foothills of the Zagros Mountains: New evidence for the Sar Pol-Ezahāb region, Iraq - Iran Borderland, Iraq, Vol 82, Cambridge University Press, December 2020.

Oliver Barge, et al., Diffusion of Anatolian and Caucasian Obsidian in the Zagros Mountains and the highlands of Iran: Elements of Explanation in 'leastcost path' models, Quaternary International 467 (Part B), February 2018.

Dong, et al., Dual domestications and origin of traits in grapevine evolution, Science, 3/3/23

Encyclopedia Iranica, Neolithic age in Iran.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Rewriting the story of ancient grapes: Establishing genetic populations and the story of V. sylvestris

A recently published grapevine genetic study (Y. Dong, et al., Dual domestications and origin of traits in grapevine evolution, Science 379 (6635), pp. 892 - 900, 3/3/23) "has upended the history of how humans first domesticated grapes for winemaking ..." (Melanie Lidman, It's in the DNA, Times of Israel, 3/25/23). I discussed the factors driving this study, as well as its objectives, in a prior post. In this post I describe study preparation efforts, the steps taken to define ancient vine genetic populations, and the stories hidden in the genes of V. sylvestris, the accepted progenitor of V. vinifera.

Data Collection

As discussed in my lead-in post, in 2019 Dr Chen and his lab reached out to colleagues around the world asking them to contribute material towards the study. A total of 3525 samples of genetic material were received at the State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resources of Yunnan Agricultural University. The samples were distributed as follows:

• 2503 Vitis vinifera, 1022 Vitis sylvestris
• 3186 from Eurasian germplasm and private collections
• 2237 V. vinifera, 949 V. sylvestris
• 339 from previously sequenced samples

According to the authors, the sample population “deferentially included old, autochthonous, economically important varieties to maximize the spectrum of genetic diversity." Lidman asserts that Israel's sample submission "... constituted the largest contingent of wild grapes from a single country, or about 10 percent of the total wild grapes sequenced for the study."

According to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT),  (scitechdaily.com, Scientists Determine the Origins of One of the World's Oldest Crops, 4/17/23), it contributed "... its globally unique collection of European wild vines and very old medieval species" to the study. It also connected the research team with the Ukraine researchers who had fled Crimea -- along with the vines from the Magarach collection -- after the 2014 Russian annexation.

Data Cleanup

In this phase of the study the team "weeded out clones, mutants, synonyms, homonyms and duplicates," ending up with 2448 grapevines (1604 V. vinifera and 844 V. sylvestris) and 498 distinct genotypes.

Categorization

The team first utilized Principal Component Analysis as a mechanism for determining whether "viticultural region" was a key element in defining grapevine diversity; according to the results of the analysis, it was not.

The team subsequently "leveraged genetic ancestry information from an unsupervised ADMIXTURE analysis" (ed., a method of inferring geographical origins based on an analysis of genetic ancestry) to categorize the core accessions. The findings from this analysis were as follows:

• The hierarchical clustering of ancestry components identifies four V. sylvestris groups from distinct geographic regions
•  Western Asia
•  Caucasus
•  Central Europe
• Iberian Peninsula
• V. sylvestris accessions collected from other regions show admixed genetic structures
• For cultivated grapevines, six genetic ancestries could designate six distinctive groups, all covering a broad range of geographic regions
• Accessions with pure ancestries helped to "ascribe" names to these groups
• CG1 -- Western Asian table grapevines
• CG2 -- Caucasian wine grapevines
• CG3 -- Muscat grapevines
• CG4 -- Balkan wine grapevines
• CG5 -- Iberian wine grapevines
• CG6 -- Western European wine grapevines

"The four sylvestris and six vinifera groups formed identifiable clusters in the PCA plots and were thus suitable for population genomic investigations."

The V. sylvestris Story

Based on “genetic ancestries and the occupied ecological niches in the western Eurasia continent, the team designated the V. sylvestris accession from Western Asia and the Caucusus as the eastern ecotype and the accession in Central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula as the western ecotype. The similarities and differences between accessions drive this designation. For example, “both nucleotide diversity and individual heterozygosity show that the western ecotype has significantly reduced variation compared with its eastern counterpart.”

In tracing the sylvestris genetic history, the authors show that the eastern sylvestris (Syl-E in their parlance) flourished in its range from approximately 1.5 million years to 800 000 years ago. The Pleistocene was a time of changing climate cycles, however, and the population experienced a bottleneck between 800,000 and 400,000 years ago.

Illustration of a population bottleneck (Source: alevelbiology.co.uk)

Somewhere between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago there was a divergence in Syl-E, giving rise to Syl-W. According to the analysis, the geographical split which drove the divergence was gradual. The Syl-W grouping experienced its own population bottleneck 400,000 - 150,000 years ago.

The last glacial cycle ran from 115,000 to 11,700 years ago and was characterized by ”global climate trending towards drier and colder conditions.” It was during this period — approximately 56,000 years ago -- that the Syl-E ecotype split into the Syl-E1 and Syl-E2 designates. It was also during this period (approximately 40,000 years ago) that there was a system-wide bottleneck which drove vine population to between 10,000 and 40,000. Syl-W experienced its own divergence, designated by the study team as Syl-W1 and Syl-W2.

In my next post I will take up the tale of V. vinifera, as told by the genes.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Upending the story of ancient grapes: Genesis of the effort

A recently published grapevine genetic study (Y. Dong, et al., Dual domestications and origin of traits in grapevine evolution, Science 379 (6635), pp. 892 - 900, 3/3/23) "has upended the history of how humans first domesticated grapes for winemaking ..." (Melanie Lidman, It's in the DNA, Times of Israel, 3/25/23). That history had been widely accepted among wine- and grape-history researchers and had served as the jumping-off point for all of the ancient wine reporting of this blog (I have, to date, covered Armenia (wine history and winemaking), Iran, and Lebanon (the Phoenicians and Renaissance interruptus).).

The core elements of this now-discounted history was that the wine grape Vitis vinifera split from its wild progenitor Vitis sylvestris as a result of a single-point domestication event which occurred 8000 years ago somewhere in the Caucasus. From that point the domesticated cultivar spread through ancient Middle Eastern kingdoms and eventually into Europe.

According to Dong, et al., there had been previous genetic grapevine studies but "critical details of grapevine domestication were inconsistent":

• Multiple centers (Western Mediterranean, Caucasus, Central Asia) had been identified as the initial domestication site
• Three demographic inferences yielded population split times to dates between 15,000 and 400,000 years ago
• The single-origin theory did not bring clarity to the origin order as regards table and wine grapes
• One school held that wine grapes came first, with table grapes splitting off ~2500 years ago
• Several studies suggest that the earliest cultivation of European wine grapes in France and Iberia can be traced back earlier than 3000 years ago.

Those discrepancies, according to Dong, et al., arise from "inadequate sampling of grapevine accessions" (genetic material) and "limited resolution of genetic data" in prior studies.

The objectives of the Dong, et al., study were to:

1. Build a grapevine genomic dataset from a global cohort
2. Analyze the contents to: 
1. systematically delineate the structure of grapevine genetic diversity
2. explore the origin of V. vinifera
3. deduce a putative dispersal history
4. investigate key domestication traits and diversification signatures.

Before I get into the study design, implementation, and results, let me take you back to its origin story.

Origin of the Study Effort

According to Lidman, Dr. Wei Chen (Yunnan Agricultural Institution, Southwest China) began sequencing grape DNA in 2017 as part of a study on Chinese grape cultivars. The lab sequenced almost 500 grapevines and found that the DNA allowed them to track:

• the way different varieties migrated across the country
• how cultivars split off from one another to form distinct varieties.

This brought him to the realization that, with enough DNA, he could map the migration of different grape varieties through space and time.

In 2019 Dr Chen and his lab launched an international research project focusing on grape cultivars and reached out to colleagues around the world asking them to contribute material towards the study. Colleagues in Germany, France, and Spain sent either dried young leaves -- which the lab could use to extract and sequence DNA -- or sequenced DNA of local varieties. These friends and colleagues also contributed by recruiting other participants into the program.

The lab began looking for patterns in the DNA after they had received samples from 90 scientists in 70 countries.

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I will report on the study execution and findings in a subsequent post.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Ancient Wine: The Phoenicians and the spread of wine across the Mediterranean Basin

According to Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind), the genus Homo evolved in Africa and spread to Eurasia 2 million years ago, resulting in the evolution of different Homo species. Homo sapiens evolved in East Africa approximately 200,000 years ago and lived there until a breakout into the broader world, commencing 70,000 years ago. The story of wine has a parallel trajectory, with its crucible being the Levant and early touch points being "near-abroad" countries. These early-adopting countries were the cult-wine regions of the time and in this series I seek to describe wine making and wine drinking therein then and now. I have, to date, covered Armenia (wine history and winemaking) and Iran and continue herein with Lebanon.

Ancient Phoenicia

Current-day Lebanon was the Phoenicia of yore. Phoenician was an ancient Greek term used to describe the Iron Age, Semitic-speaking people who inhabited the central coast of the Levant (the region along the eastern Mediterranean which roughly corresponds to modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and certain adjacent areas).

But the Phoenicians were not limited to the Levant. Around 1100 BC the Phoenicians began founding colonies all across the Mediterranean and even on the Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa. Carthage and Syracuse are two of the noteworthy names that have resonated down the corridors of history but these -- and most of the other colonies -- were lost to Rome during the course of the Punic Wars (264 - 146 BC).

The Phoenicians used their trade routes to spread wine and their alphabet across the Mediterranean.

Phoenicia and its trade routes
(Source: Wikipedia.org)

Wine in Ancient Phoenicia

Grape cultivation spread to Phoenicia around 3000 BC and wine became a valuable commodity for the inhabitants both as as a trade good and for local consumption in feasts and as a libation. As shown in the chart below, the wine was well-regarded and was referenced in many ancient sources.

Phoenician Winemaking

Winemaking in the Levant and across the Mediterranean, in the period between the 5th century BC and 1st century AD, utilized wine presses with the following characteristics:

• A treading floor/basin where grapes were crushed by foot
• A vat for the collection of the must 
• A connecting channel between the "crush pad" and vat.

The crush pad was generally hewn out of rock or built with stone blocks.

A newly discovered wine press at the Tell el-Burak archaeological site has revealed a marked departure from this convention.

Tell el-Burak is a small Phoenician site located near the modern-day Lebanese city of Sidon. It was occupied between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. The wine press excavated from the site dates to the 7th century BC and is the earliest evidence of winemaking in ancient Phoenicia.

The press consisted of a large rectangular treading basin (4500 L) attached to a large vat. The structure was built with plaster made from a mixture of lime and recycled ceramics. This material rendered the press both easier to build and stronger than its contemporaries. The size of the vessel indicates industrial-scale wine production.

The chart immediately below captures the actual excavated material while the one following is an artist's conception of how the press would have appeared when operational.

Excavated Tell el-Burak Wine Press
(Source: Orsingher, et al., Phoenician
lime for Phoenician wine: Iron Age
 plaster from a wine press at Tell el-Burak,
Lebanon, Antiquity 377, 1224 - 1244)

Artist's conception of Tell el-Burak Wine Press
(Source: Orsingher, et al., Phoenician lime
for Phoenician wine: Iron Age plaster from
 a wine press at Tell el-Burak, Lebanon,
 Antiquity 377, 1224 - 1244)

In addition to the press, a large number of grape seeds were found at the site, confirming a large scale, industrial operation.

Wine as a Key Phoenician Trade Good

There are a number of references from ancient sources as to the importance of wine in the Phoenician trade arsenal:

• Ezekiel's (Chapter 27) oracle against Tyre suggest the city's involvement (6th century BCE) in transporting and marketing wines produced in other parts of the Levant
• Herodotus (Hist 3.6) claimed that Phoenician wine was imported twice a year into Egypt
• Two shipwrecks (ca. 8th century BCE) discovered 30 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza are advanced as evidence of the scope of the Phoenician wine trade. These ships were laden with hundreds of carinated-shoulder amphorae (a distinctive Phoenician container) and organic residue from one amphora suggests that its contents were wine.

Carinated-Shoulder Amphora
(Source: amarnaproject.com)

Initially the Phoenicians tried to avoid spills during transport by covering the wine with a layer of oil but this proved unsatisfactory. They next tried a pinewood disk bedded into the necks of the amphorae with a clay and resin mixture. This resinous mix flavored the wine as it made contact during the course of the voyage and the Phoenicians -- as well as the Greeks -- thought that it also acted as a preservative. This was the precursor to Retsina.

Phoenician Influence in the spread of Wine beyond the Middle East

Domestication of the grapevine and production of wine was initiated in the Caucusus region during the Neolithic and spread to neighboring polities, reaching Phoenicia by 3000 BC. Phoenicia then became the key link in catapulting wine consumption and cultivation knowledge into the wider world:

• It is believed that wine was first brought to Crete by Phoenician traders
• Stassinus, author of the "Cyprus Epic Songs," stipulates that the cultivation of grape vines dates back to the early days of the Island's colonization by the Phoenicians in 3000 BC
• The Romans learned to appreciate the consumption and production  of wine from the Phoenician/Punic and Greek peoples
• The first vines in Sardinia were imported by the Phoenicians
• Winemaking in Sardinia dates back to the time of the Phoenicians.

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The Phoenicians, the progenitors of modern-day Lebanon, were clearly major players in the development and spread of wine in Mediterranean Basin and beyond.  What has become of that headstart in more modern times? I will explore that question in an upcoming post.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The Romans and wine: Taking a good thing and making it better

The Romans possessed an exceptional capacity for taking "good things" and making them better and, according to Professor Elizabeth Lev, this characteristic was manifested in spades in the wine world.

The Greeks were responsible for the creation of the wine culture in Italy. They named the southern portion of the peninsula Oenetria -- "the land of the tamed vines", according to Professor Lev. They also brought some of their native varieties to Italy. Aglianico, for example, is widely held to be a Greek transplant, with the Italian name being a transformation of Hellenistico (Greece was known as Hellas).

The Romans did not get involved in serious wine drinking until about the 3rd century when they developed a bread culture. Prior to this period, the main Roman dish was a porridge-like concoction called puls, which was served during cena, the main meal of the day. Adoption of bread-based meals began in the 3rd century and with it the rise of bakeries and wine drinking.

The Greeks had historically grown their grapes along the ground or trained in trees. The Romans developed the Pergola which lifted the vine off the ground, allowing greater access to the sun for all parts of the berry as well as allowing wind to dry out the vines after rainfall.

The Greeks and Egyptians had historically trod their grapes to extract the juice. The Romans adopted this practice but also added mechanical means of pressing the juice from the grapes.

The Romans  were the first to distinguish between first and subsequent pressings with the third press set aside and, in many cases, given to the slaves.

The Romans were also the first to (Professor Lev):

• Understand vintage differential
• Serve wine in glassware
• Work on wine storage (both in terms of where and length).

The Romans also preferred white wines to red with Livia Augusta attributing her long life to a daily tipple of Pucinum, a forerunner to today's Prosecco.

The most famous of the Roman wines was Falernian, a sweet, high-alcohol, late-harvested wine. According to Professor Lev, this wine was made from the Aglianico grape but another source claims that it was made from Falanghina while two others give that honor to the Aminean grape. This wine was highly prized and priced. Professor Lev spoke of the Opimian vintage of 121BC which was served at a Julius Caesar banquet in 60BC.

Wines for the masses were flavored with chalk, seawater, honey, etc. The wines served to aristocrats were first boiled-down in lead-lined pots, the process concentrating the wine by 1/3 or as much as 1/2, depending on the preference. Boiling in the lead added a specific sweetness to the wine but also poisoned the drinkers. Gout and dementia are symptoms of lead consumption, conditions manifested in many of the Roman rulers of this period.

By 50AD, Romans were consuming an average of one bottle of wine per person per day. The Vesuvius eruption created a major secondary crisis in that it took out a significant portion of the Empire's best vines. This led to a panic in 79AD where folks were ripping out grain in order to plant vines. 

Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were far less interested in moderation. And this extended to their praise of the beverage. Romans loved to "talk, write, and wax poetic" about growing grapes and drinking wine. Major historical figures such as Cato, Horus, and Pliny the Elder have all contributed to the body of work from this period.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme