Two giant vats of wine have been found in a Stone Age village, dating back before even the wheel was invented, which can mean only one thing: the human race has always had its priorities in order.
Archaeologists found the wine in two villages in Georgia, believed to be about 8,000 years old. That’s almost a millennium earlier than we originally thought we’d started drinking wine, with the oldest evidence until now being found in the Iranian mountains. It's a period associated with the origins of modern society's basic tools, such as farming and animal domestication. Now we can add winemaking that to that list.
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Stephen Batiuk, the co-author of the study, said: ‘Wine is central to civilization as we know it in the West. As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies and society in the ancient Near East.’
From the volume found, researchers believe that winemaking was taken seriously even then, with villagers growing their own ‘domesticated’ grapes just for fermenting. Again: priorities.
Researchers also managed to establish what our Stone Age drink of choice was. The vats contained a yellowish residue, so are believed to have contained white wine, not red. The jars were also decorated with hand-painted images of grapes and dancing men, which kind of outshines a bottle emblazoned ‘I heart Pinot Grigio’.
Patrick McGovern summarised: ‘When we pick up a glass of wine and put it to our lips and taste it we are recapitulating that history that goes back at least 8,000 years.'
Or, we’ve always loved wine and it’s in our blood to continue to make and drink it. History said we had to.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.