JISCMail - ARCHAEOBOTANY Archives

Dear all,

My e-mail is a follow up to Jan's suggestion about checking 1998 IWGP meeting website for (subfossil) grape morphology.

I found lots of well preserved grape pips, along with numerous charred grains of cultivated barley and wheat etc., on Ljubljansko barje (Ljubljana Moor) in Central Slovenia. The pips varied quite substantially in their sizes and shape, so I used Stummer's index (although I was aware about its unreliability) to learn more details about the distribution of their variety. The index suggested that the majority of pips show characteristics of wild grapes (Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris), although a few of them fall into a category of cultivated species. The result was expected since the radiocarbon date of the pips is app. 4780 uncal BP (-the oldest evidence for vine in Slovenia-) and corresponds to dates of artefacts that place the settlement/pile dwelling, where the pips were recovered, into Eneolithic period.

In any case, I wonder what would be other approaches that can be used for distinguishing among different types of grape pips. I looked at the suggested website, but couldn't find enough information on some references that I would like to read - for example papers by Ruth Pelling and Marijke van der Veen, by Danièle Martolini and Christiane Jacquat, and by Mordechai Kislev. Thus I would like to ask if somebody can provide more details about them and/or related papers, or any other ideas concerning grape seeds/pips identification. I would also appreciate the advice on how to get older papers, such as Facsar (1970; 1973) and Terpó (1976; 1977).