Vote it up! Mesopotamian wine stopper,no logo. Public domain (Public Domain)

Here's bad news for those of us who have the aniti-shopping gene and sweet vindication for brand name bimbos.
A British dig underway in Iraq has found evidence that product branding first emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of cities and writing. So claims David Wengrow, an archaeologist at University College London, who says that bottle stops stamped with symbols some 5000 years ago are evidence of the first branded goods.

Around 8000 years ago, village-dwelling Mesopotamians began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the caps and stoppers used to seal food and drink.

Originally these goods would have been traded directly with neighbours and travellers. But when urbanisation began - a little over 5000 years ago - city residents increasingly had to deal with products of uncertain origin.

Wengrow says the symbols in caps and stoppers came to play an important role in telling people about the quality and origins of products such as oils and wine. He described how the seals might have been used to ensure quality control, to give provenance for goods or to show that they conformed to a standardised system. By looking at the symbol on a wine stopper, says Wengrow, consumers came to know whether or not to trust that bottle

Many stoppers have been found in the ancient city of Uruk, now in Iraq, where some 20,000 people lived 5000 years ago. The symbol impressions are the first images produced mechanically in human history, says Wengrow.

Ever since their discovery, the images have been regarded as works of art, but Wengrow now believes what we consider art may actually have been promotional branding/ Shows just how long ago we recognized the importance of a strong logo.

Another area expected to be rich in branded artifacts is Shiraz in the north, the home of wine making in Mesopotamia where the now world famous Shiraz grape originated. Wengrow is convinced that work there will yield further evidence the ancients were using branding in the commercial sense.