Areni-1 Cave: The World's Oldest Winery and Leather Shoe

Areni-1 is a cave in southern Armenia that holds the world’s oldest known winery, dated to around 4100 BC, and the oldest known leather shoe, made about 5,500 years ago. Excavated from 2007 by an Armenian, Irish and American team, the cave’s cool, dry conditions preserved organic remains that rarely survive elsewhere. Its discoveries have shed new light on daily life, ritual and technology in the Copper Age of the South Caucasus.

The cave and its setting

Areni-1 lies in Vayots Dzor Province, close to the village of Areni, in a limestone cliff above the Arpa River. The cave is also known as Birds’ Cave because of the many birds that nest at its mouth. It is a large karst cave with several chambers stretching back into the rock.

The surrounding valley is still one of Armenia’s main wine-growing areas, famous for a local grape variety called Areni. The village holds an annual wine festival, and the archaeological finds have become part of the region’s identity.

Inside the cave, a thick layer of sheep and goat dung and a stable, dry microclimate created ideal conditions for preservation. Plant remains, textiles, leather, rope and even grape seeds survived in remarkable condition.

Background: grapes and wine in the Caucasus

The wild Eurasian grapevine grows naturally across a wide area from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, including the valleys of the South Caucasus and the Taurus and Zagros mountains. Domestication changed the plant in important ways: cultivated vines are hermaphroditic and self-pollinating, which gives more reliable harvests, and their berries are larger and sweeter.

Many researchers place the early domestication of the grape in this highland region, although the exact time and place are still debated and genetic studies suggest more than one centre. By the sixth millennium BC, farmers in what is now Georgia were storing wine in large pottery jars, and similar evidence appears in north-western Iran soon afterwards.

The Late Chalcolithic, when Areni-1 was in use, was a time of growing social complexity across the Near East. Copper metallurgy spread, long-distance exchange increased, and in southern Mesopotamia the first cities were beginning to grow. Fermented drinks such as wine and beer seem to have played an important role in feasts and rituals, helping leaders bring people together and display their status.

Excavation

Systematic excavations began in 2007, led by Boris Gasparyan of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, with Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Ireland and Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles. The work revealed several layers of use, with the most important finds belonging to the Late Chalcolithic, or Late Copper Age, roughly 4300 to 3400 BC.

The excavators found storage jars, pits, hearths, grinding stones, metal objects and many pots. They also uncovered burials, including human skulls placed in pots, which suggest that parts of the cave were used for rituals connected with the dead.

The world’s oldest known winery

In January 2011 the team announced that they had found the oldest known wine-making installation, publishing the results in the Journal of Archaeological Science. It consists of a shallow clay basin about a metre across, sloping so that liquid drained into a large clay vat sunk into the ground nearby. Grapes appear to have been crushed by treading in the basin, much as in later traditional wine making.

Around the installation were grape seeds, pressed grape skins, stems and dried vines. The seeds belong to the domesticated grape, Vitis vinifera vinifera. Chemical analysis of residues in the vat and in nearby potsherds detected malvidin, the pigment that gives red grapes and red wine their colour. Radiocarbon dates place the installation at around 4100 to 4000 BC.

Because the winery sits in a cave also used for burials, many researchers think the wine was linked to rituals for the dead, though it may also have been drunk on other occasions. Cups and drinking bowls found nearby support the idea of communal drinking.

The oldest leather shoe

In 2008 Diana Zardaryan, a doctoral student working with the team, found a leather shoe in a pit under an upturned pot. It was made from a single piece of cowhide that was wrapped around the foot and laced along the front and back with a leather cord. Its size is roughly equivalent to a modern women’s European size 37, although it may have been worn by a man or a woman.

The shoe was stuffed with grass, perhaps to keep its shape or to insulate the foot. Radiocarbon dates on the leather and grass, published in the journal PLoS ONE in June 2010, fall between about 3630 and 3380 BC. That makes it a few centuries older than the shoes of Otzi the Iceman, found in the Alps in 1991.

The style of the shoe is strikingly similar to the traditional one-piece leather footwear worn in parts of Europe until the twentieth century, such as the Irish pampootie. This shows how practical designs can last for thousands of years. The shoe is now displayed at the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan, where it has become one of the country’s best-known archaeological objects.

Other finds

The cave has produced an unusual range of perishable objects, including woven textiles, rope, straw and reed items, and dried fruit such as apricots. Cereals including wheat and barley were found in storage pits, alongside remains of domestic animals.

Researchers also reported traces of preserved brain tissue in one of the skulls, which attracted wide attention. Metal objects, including copper items, and pottery linked to cultures of the wider South Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia show that Areni-1 belonged to an extensive network of contacts. The later finds, including the shoe, are roughly contemporary with the early phases of the Maykop culture north of the Caucasus.

Myths and facts

“Areni-1 is where wine was invented.” It is not. Chemical traces of wine are older, for example at Hajji Firuz Tepe in Iran, dated to around 5400-5000 BC, and at Neolithic sites in Georgia dated to about 6000 BC. Areni-1 holds the oldest known installation built for producing wine, not the earliest wine itself.

“The shoe belonged to a woman.” Its small size matches a modern women’s shoe, but prehistoric people were often shorter than people today and the shoe could equally have been worn by a man. The owner is unknown.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 4300 BC: Late Chalcolithic use of the Areni-1 cave begins.
• c. 4100–4000 BC: Wine-making installation in use.
• c. 3600–3400 BC: Leather shoe made and left in the cave.
• 2007: Systematic excavation begins under Boris Gasparyan, Ron Pinhasi and Gregory Areshian.
• 2008: Discovery of the leather shoe.
• 2010, June: Shoe published in PLoS ONE.
• 2011, January: Discovery of the winery announced.

Why it matters

Areni-1 offers an unusually intimate view of Copper Age life. Its wine press and vat show that organised wine production existed more than 6,000 years ago, while its leather shoe and other perishable finds reveal crafts that normally vanish without trace. Together they make the cave one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Caucasus.