The olive is one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees on Earth, and its history is deeply intertwined with humans; it has expanded its range through human activity, reflecting the rise and fall of several civilisations. As a result, the olive has been disseminated well beyond its native range, spanning 28.6 million acres across 66 countries. Fossil evidence indicates that the olive tree had its origins 20–40 million years ago in the Oligocene, in what now corresponds to Italy and the eastern Mediterranean basin. Around 100,000 years ago, olives were used by humans in Africa, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, for fuel and most probably for consumption. The olive was first cultivated in the Mediterranean basin between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago. Spanish colonists brought the olive to the New World in the 18th century. Olive trees were introduced to Japan in 1908 on Shodo Island in the Seto Inland Sea. It accounts for over 95% of Japan's olive production. Fifty-eight countries across five continents produce olive oil.
Context As one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees on Earth, the history of the olive is deeply intertwined with humans; its ecological success and expansion is largely the result of human activity rather than environmental conditions, with the tree's genetic and geographic trajectory directly reflecting the rise and fall of several civilisations. Owing to this relationship with humans, the olive has been disseminated well beyond its native range, spanning 28.6 million acres across 66 countries. There were an estimated 865 million olive trees in the world in 2005, of which the vast majority were in Mediterranean countries; traditionally marginal areas accounted for no more than 25% of olive-planted area and 10% of oil production.
Origins Fossil evidence indicates that the olive tree had its origins 20–40 million years ago in the Oligocene, in what now corresponds to Italy and the eastern Mediterranean Basin.
Human use of wild olives Around 100,000 years ago, olives were used by humans in Africa, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, for fuel and most probably for consumption. People have collected wild olives in the Eastern Mediterranean since approximately 19,000 BP; the genome of cultivated olives reflects their origin from wild (oleaster) populations in the region.
Domestication The olive was first cultivated in the Mediterranean between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago. Domestication likely began in the Levant, based on archeological findings in ancient tombs, including written tablets, olive stones, and olive wood fragments, as well as genetic analyses. Hittite texts dating to the second millennium BC in present-day Turkey describe anointing a newborn child and mother with olive oil to protect against the dangers of childbirth. The earliest evidence for the domestication of olives comes from the Chalcolithic period archaeological site of Teleilat el Ghassul in modern Jordan. Farmers in ancient times believed that olive trees would not grow well if planted more than a certain distance from the sea; Theophrastus gives 300 stadia (55.6 km or 34.5 mi) as the limit. Modern experience does not always confirm this, and, though showing a preference for the coast, they have long been grown further inland in some areas with suitable climates, particularly in the southwestern Mediterranean (Iberia and northwest Africa) where winters are mild. An article on olive tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture. The exact ancestry of the cultivated olive is unknown. Fossil Olea pollen has been found in Macedonia and other places around the Mediterranean, indicating that this genus is an original element of the Mediterranean flora. Fossilised leaves of Olea were found in the paleosols of the volcanic Greek island of Santorini and dated to about 37,000 BP. Imprints of larvae of olive whitefly Aleurobus olivinus were found on the leaves. The same insect is commonly found today on olive leaves, showing that the plant-animal co-evolutionary relations have not changed since that time. Other leaves found on the same island date back to 60,000 BP, making them the oldest known olives from the Mediterranean.
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