The commonly held belief was that the wild grapevine vitis sylvestris was domesticated at a single point and spread to the rest of the world therefrom. Researchers have named the single-domestication-point hypothesis the "Noah Hypothesis." The hypothesis is illustrated in the chart below where domestication candidate sites are identified and the onward distribution routes of vitis vinifera plotted.
The Dong, et al., study refutes the origin component of the Noah Hypothesis and replaces it with a dual, simultaneous-domestication model.
I now turn to the distribution aspect of the Noah Hypothesis. While the Dong, et al., study does provide for a domestication center in the Caucasus, the result was "... mainly confined to both sides of the Caucasus Mountains, with a limited dispersal into the Carpathian Basin by the northern Black Sea." According to the authors, "... CG2 (ed. The Caucasian domesticate) represents a local domestication effort that had a minor impact on grapevine domestication." The distribution path of CG2 is illustrated in the map below.
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| Red oval approximates the Caucasus distribution center; black arrow illustrates the range of the grapevine. |
If we take the Dong, et al., argument at face value, the mother of all grapevines originated in the Levant, the Western Asia Domestication Center illustrated above. I will delve further into the region and its inhabitants in upcoming posts. In future posts I will also trace the spread of grapevines ouward from this source point.
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