Grapes were a notable exception.Small-scale genetic analyses had pegged their cultivation as happening between 15,000 and 400,000 years ago-a range implausibly wide, not least because, a few minor excursions aside, Homo sapiens left Africa only about 60,000 years before the present day.
This estimate of when grapes were first cultivated has now been pruned.
In a study just published in Science, Chen Wei of Yunnan Agricultural University, in China, and a team of collaborators from across the world, have distilled a new picture.
Grapevines were, it seems, domesticated on two occasions, in quick succession but in different parts of the world, about 11,000 years ago.
That makes the old model so much noble
rot.
[Now that whole building just collapsed," says Dr Chen.