Confirming the Function of a Final Bronze Age Wine Processing Site in the Nuraghe Genna Maria in Villanovaforru (South Sardinia)
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Vitis 59, 93–100 (2020) DOI: 10.5073/vitis.2020.59.93-100 Confirming the function of a Final Bronze Age wine processing site in the Nuraghe Genna Maria in Villanovaforru (South Sardinia) G. DAMASCO1), D. DELPIANO1), R. LARCHER2), T. NARDIN2), M. PERRA3) and G. LOVICU1) 1) AGRIS Sardegna, Agricultural Research Agency of Sardinia, Cagliari, Italy 2) Edmund Mach Foundation, San Michele all'Adige, Italy 3) Director of Villanovafranca Museum "Su Mulinu", Venice, Italy Summary that of the Nuraghe Genna Maria studied in this article, brings a contribution to their dating and confirm the The stone artefact in the hut γ of the NuragheGe- existence of an oenological industry on the island in the nna Maria, object of this study, is part of a compound Archaic period (9th-10th century B.C.). still unpublished today and dated to the Nuragic peri- od. It was found during a 1991 excavation, revealing K e y w o r d s : stonewine press; wine processing; Bronze a situation unchanged since the collapse occurred be- Age; Sardinia; Nuragic civilization. tween the 10th and 9th century B.C., thus preserving the situation at the time of the collapse to this day. The presence of tartaric acid - the marker con- Introduction sidered to determinate the presence of wines or prod- ucts deriving from grapes - has been determined using Nuragic civilization and the Genna HPLC-DAD and UHPLC-HQOMS. So the findings M a r i a N u r a g h e : The nuragic civilization developed under examination, together with the overall evalua- during the Sardinian Bronze Age, and it reflects in the land- tion of the archaeological aspects examined, suggests to scape with the outlines of the megalithic structures of its positively consider the stone artifact as a "laccus" (the towers (the nuraghes), its tombs (traditionally called "giants' latin word for wine presses, still used in the Sardinian tombs"), its villages, and its ceremonial sites (PERRA 2013, language today ) for grape crushing. The internal slope VANZETTI et al. 2014). The peak moment of its development of the floor of the "laccus" allowed the extraction of occurred between the Middle Late Bronze, the Recent juice with rapid separation of juice from berry skins. Bronze, and the Final Bronze (about 14th-11th century B.C.). The presence in Sardinia of a large number of Nuraghe Genna Maria in Villanovaforru (Fig. 1) is locat- "stone wine presses" ("palmenti" in Italian) such as ed on top of the hill with the same name, Genna Maria, from Fig. 1: Location of the nuragic site of Genna Maria, Villanovaforru, Sardinia, Italy. Correspondence to: Dr. G. LOVICU, AGRIS Sardegna, Agricultural Research Agency of Sardinia, Via Mameli 126d, 09123 Cagliari, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] © The author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). 94 G. DAMASCO et al. where it dominates the surrounding landscape of Marmilla colonies of wild grapevine is well documented (GRASSI and beyond, as far as the Gulf of Oristano. On the top of the et al. 2003). hill (about 408 m above sea level), the ongoing archaeolog- Observations carried out in more recent years highlight ical investigations have revealed a site of settlement which, the presence of cultivated types of grapes in Sardinia since from its distant nuragic origins (about the 16th-15th century the Middle Bronze Age. The varietal framework traceable B.C.), continued, through alternate events, until the early from the grape seeds found in the 1400 B.C. nuragic well Middle Ages (7th century A.D.) (Fig. 2). of "Sa Osa", near Oristano (central western Sardinia, about 30 kilometers north west far from Nuraghe Genna Maria) (Orrù et al. 2013), can be traced back to a viticulture which is advanced from a varietal point of view, composed of pips attributable to cultivated grapevines. This is also confirmed by the examination of the "nuragic" grape of Villanovatulo (central Sardinia, about 30 km north east far from Nuraghe- Genna Maria), pips and berry belong to a cultivated type (CAMPUS et al. 2014). Under this point of view, a new light is shed on Iron Age pips, belonging to cultivated types, from Nuraghe Genna Maria (BAKELS 2002), as these cultivated forms have been found in archaeological layers that precede by centuries commercial contacts with the Phoenicians. The presence of an oenological industry in archaic age Sardinia needs to be confirmed by the discovery of artefacts or devices required for the production of wine starting from grapes. While the presence of wild grapevine and the finding of grape pips and berries in the archaeological layers of the excavations, as well as the historical information and doc- Fig. 2: Plan of the nuragic settlement of Genna Maria, Villanova- umentary sources confirm the antiquity of the island's wine forru, Sardinia, Italy. Hut γ is highlighted by red circle industry, not much is known much about wine production artefacts and processes. It must be said that throughout the The huts examined have brought to light a village island, several stone artefacts were found. They are some- marked by the presence of houses consisting of several times characteristic elements of the landscape and have been rooms aggregated around a probably uncovered central traditionally used by the local population for the production courtyard, inside of which lithic and metal findings, ceramic, of wine.These stone artefacts can be dug into the ground or bone, and animal remains (remains of meals), as well as built outside. In both cases these elements are characterized carbonized plant remains have been recovered, testifying by a larger "tank" placed at a higher elevation (and having a moments of the daily life of a 10th-9th century B.C. commu- sloping floor), and a smaller tank placed immediately below nity of farmers and breeders. the first. There are no doubts about the use of these artefacts The intense phase of life of this nuragic community was in recent times Sardinia: white winemaking process, grape affected by a dramatic event, as evidenced by the traces of juice is immediately separated from skins by the outflow. fire on the wooden roofs and by the reddened walls of the This preliminary investigation aims at assessing houses. The fire, due to the strong heat released, has severely whether the marl artefacts adjacent to the right side of the altered some of the findings and caused the collapse of the wall structure of the hut γ - never reused by man after the roofs. This event took place around the middle of the 9th fire and collapse of the 9th century B.C. and opened only century B.C. during the recent excavations - may have been used up to Essentially, the hut γ, subject of this study, and its ar- 900 years B.C. to produce wine. To achieve this goal this tefacts have been protected thanks to the collapse in the 9th research aims to find chemical compounds that could provide century B.C. and have not been exposed to sunlight (and to evidence that artefacts described above have been used for a possible and further use) until the excavation campaign of winemaking process. the second half of the 20th century: they therefore provide a picture of the situation created at the time of the collapse. Wine trade within and from ancient Material and Methods S a r d i n i a : The presence of wild grapevines naturally leads to the hypothesis that the evidence relating to local Hut γ ( F i g . 3 ) : The subject of this study, is part wine growing in the same territory is fairly old. of a compound still unpublished; it is a quadrangular hut The wild grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. ssp sylvestris) is whose main wall, overlooking the entrance, also encloses in all respect a European grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) and hut β, forming a corridor with the outer wall of the west the ancestor of modern cultivated grapevine varieties. Some tower of the three-lobed structure and its west wall. Surveys studies highlight the importance of secondary centres of carried out in this area in 1982 confirmed that the structure domestication in the rest of the Mediterranean basin for covers a layer of collapse of the three-lobed structure which the spreading of grapevine cultivation, as the presence of was covered by layers of sterile soil rich in marly flakes. Confirming the function of a Final Bronze Age wine processing site 95 a compound and may expose to the risk of wrong interpreta- tions and false positives (STERN et al. 2008, GARNIER et al. 2016). More recently, the application of liquid chromato- graphic or gaseous techniques coupled to a mass detector (GC-MS, LC-MS) has allowed a safe identification of the compound (GUASCH-JANÉ et al. 2004 and 2006, PECCI et al. 2013, GARNIER et al. 2016), although its extraction from archaeological finds (potsherd, jar or other artefacts) is in- fluenced by the balance between the soluble free form and the little soluble tartrates (MICHEL et al. 1993). Three samples were collected by abrading the surface b of the upper basin (sample 1 in Fig. 4), the paved surface (sample 2), and the lower tank (sample 3 in Fig. 5) with a scraper and taken to the laboratory for analysis in contam- ination-free containers. Fig. 3: (a) View of the hut γ. (b) View and dimensions (centimetre) of the stone artefact in hut γ. The upper layer consisted of an ash-grey layer with animal bones and geometric ceramics, some of which had been heavily altered by the heat.