The Archaeology of Wine in the Southern Caucasus. New Methods for an Old Tradition

The Southern Caucasus belongs to the core area where viticulture and wine production first developed in the Neolithic period (sixth millennium BC). Since then wine occupied, and still continues to occupy, a central role in the local cultures, as part of the subsistence economy, a focus of ritualised consumption and a source of visual symbols. Archaeology provides ample material evidence of this tradition and of its continuity/development, in particular from the territory of Georgia: wine production installations, areas for storage, consumption and deposition, specialised tools and vessels, wine-related iconography, etc. The article presents a selection of the different categories of evidence and focuses on the new results obtained on the ‘Archaeology of Wine’ in the region through a multidisciplinary approach and with the help of bioarchaeology and ‘archaeological science’