TEHRAN -- A team of archaeobotanists from the University of Milan and the Italian Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Property has recently arrived at the 5200-year-old Burnt City in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan in order to conduct DNA studies on the ancient grape seeds discovered at the site.

“The team led by Professor Lorenzo Constantini has begun their work researching the quality and volume of grape cultivation at the site during the prehistoric eras,” Mansur Sajjadi, the director of the Iranian team of archaeologists working at the Burnt City, told the Persian service of CHN on Wednesday.

“The studies are meant to determine the cultural structure of the region and will also shed light on many questions about the environmental situation of the area during the prehistoric eras,” he added.

Constantini, a world-renowned archaeobotanist, previously cooperated with the Iranian team in the identification of bread in the diet of the people who lived in the Burnt City 5000 years ago.

Despite the region’s current arid climate, it is clear that grape cultivation was very common in the area 5000 years ago due to the many grape seeds and vine roots discovered during the ten seasons of excavations at the Burnt City.