The history of winegrowing in the Veneto region has origins deep in past millennia. The Greeks are generally given credit for introducing the grapevine into the Italian peninsula, but important archaeological discoveries demonstrate that viticulture existed long before that era. In all likelihood, the still undomesticated grapevine was already present in the Veneto many centuries BC, and people of those periods ate grapes as food. But the first evidence of actual winemaking in the Veneto appears only in the 7th century BC, with the Rhaetian-Etruscan population.