The grapevine was first domesticated in the Levant! A recent study involving 89 researchers from 23 different institutions has suggested that the Levant (modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan) is one of the two domestication centres of grapevines. The study challenges the previously held notion that grapevines had one domestication centre, which was thought to be the south Caucasus (modern-day Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan) some 8000 years ago. According to the study, there were two contemporaneous domestication events 11,000 years ago, one in the Near East and the other in the Caucasus. The study shows that the domesticated vines from the Levant spread westwards with human populations, and through a series of introgressions, they gave rise to the Vitis vinifera varieties widely grown today. On the other hand, the domesticated vines from the Caucasus gave rise to the varieties currently grown in Georgia and Armenia, which are quite different in origin. Read more
