Winemaking practices in coastal Italy in the course of the Roman interval concerned utilizing native grapes for making wine in jars waterproofed with imported tar pitch, based on a examine printed June 29, 2022 within the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Louise Chassouant of Avignon College and colleagues.
The authors examined three Roman interval amphorae — wine jars — from a seabed deposit close to the trendy harbor of San Felice Circeo, Italy, about 90 km southeast of Rome. A mix of chemical markers, plant tissue residue, and pollen offered proof of grape derivatives and pine throughout the jars. The proof suggests the amphorae had been utilized in each pink and white winemaking processes, whereas the pine was used to create tar for waterproofing the jars and maybe additionally flavoring the wine, as has been noticed at comparable archaeological websites.
The grapevine pollen matches wild species from the world, suggesting these winemakers had been utilizing native vegetation, though it stays unclear whether or not these had been domesticated on the time. The pine tar, however, is non-local, and was possible imported from Calabria or Sicily based mostly on different historic sources.
The authors emphasize the good thing about this multidisciplinary strategy to characterize cultural practices from archaeological artefacts. On this case, the identification of plant stays, chemical evaluation, historic and archaeological data, amphorae design, and former findings all contributed to the conclusions of this evaluation, offering an instance of methodology for decoding a historical past past the artefacts which might not be potential utilizing a single method.
The authors add: “If there was a message to be retained from the studying of this text, it might be associated to the multidisciplinary methodology to be utilized. Certainly, by utilizing completely different approaches to unravel the content material and nature of the coating layer of Roman amphorae, we’ve got pushed the conclusion additional within the understanding of historic practices than it might have been with a single strategy.”
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