Chemical analyses of ancient organic compounds absorbed into the pottery fabrics of imported Etruscan amphoras ( ca. 500–475 B.C.) and into a limestone pressing platform ( ca. 425–400 B.C.) at the ancient coastal port site of Lattara in southern France provide the earliest biomolecular archaeological evidence for grape wine and viniculture from this country, which is crucial to the later history of wine in Europe and the rest of the world. The data support the hypothesis that export of wine by ship from Etruria in central Italy to southern Mediterranean France fueled an ever-growing market and interest in wine there, which, in turn, as evidenced by the winepress, led to transplantation of the Eurasian grapevine and the beginning of a Celtic industry in France. Herbal and pine resin additives to the Etruscan wine point to the medicinal role of wine in antiquity, as well as a means of preserving it during marine transport.

The Celtic-speaking town of Lattara (modern Lattes) in Iron Age southern Gaul was an important centre of sustained colonial interaction with Etruscans, Massalian Greeks and Romans from the sixth century B.C. One of the important consequences of these encounters was the introduction of coinage. Through an examination of the archaeological context of coins, I investigate how the use and value of money changed at Lattara after the Roman conquest. Drawing upon several anthropological discussions of money in colonial settings, particularly Jean and John Commaroff's (2006) notion of ‘commensuration’, I suggest that the incorporation of coinage into transaction systems at Lattara was related to its expedience as a standardized form of value, which facilitated exchange between the inhabitants of the town and foreign merchants.

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