diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 848195e22fc20bdf29c53e5937750a363f0a3367..6087cb51957da0f14e2990f71ff56fa2d8a3aa1f 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 
 	<properties>
 		<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
-		<java.version>1.6</java.version>
+		<java.version>1.8</java.version>
 	</properties>
 
 
@@ -106,6 +106,11 @@
 			<artifactId>guava</artifactId>
 			<version>18.0</version>
 		</dependency>
+		<dependency>
+			<groupId>com.tinkerpop.blueprints</groupId>
+			<artifactId>blueprints-core</artifactId>
+			<version>2.6.0</version>
+		</dependency>
 	</dependencies>
 
 	<build>
@@ -118,7 +123,7 @@
 					<forkedProcessTimeoutInSeconds>300</forkedProcessTimeoutInSeconds>
 				</configuration>
 			</plugin>
-			<!-- we want JDK 1.6 source and binary compatibility -->
+			<!-- we want JDK source and binary compatibility -->
 			<plugin>
 				<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
 				<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>