Wine
Grape residue in Georgian jars records deliberate fermentation from around 6000 BCE.
- When
- Known to
- ± 300 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Pottery from Neolithic sites south of Tbilisi carries tartaric acid and grape pollen, indicating winemaking around 6000 BCE — the oldest evidence known. The vessels are large, decorated, and made for storage rather than immediate use. Wine keeps, travels and concentrates value, and it becomes an object of long-distance trade and religious ritual across the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.