THE PREHISTORY OF OLIVE CULTIVATION AND PROCESSING

Where, how, and why the olive was first domesticated remains an open question, but the best early evidence appears along the Carmel coast in Israel (Galili et al 1993; 1997). On the underwater site of Athlit-Yam, a Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic village dating to 8100–7500 bp (approximately 7121–6387 bce, as calibrated using CalPal Online — all calibrated dates in this section were calculated using CalPal), olive pollen and carbonized olive wood are present. However, there is no evidence of olive fruit on the site, although grapes, figs, and almonds are included among the archaeobotanical remains (Galili et al. 1993: 152, 154). At the Kfar Samir underwater site, another early village located north of Athlit-Yam and dating to the Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic period, abundant remains of olive stones and evidence for processing olives for olive oil have been discovered (Galili et al. 1997: 1142–6). Uncalibrated radiocarbon dates on ten samples of the olive remains ranged from 6500 + 70 to 5630 + 55 bp (calibrated 5457 + 68–4460 + 63 bce) (Galili et al. 1997: 1145).

This suggests that the olive was domesticated some time between 7500 and 6500 bp (approximately 6387–5457 bce). The presence of olive branches on the earlier site of Athlit-Yam suggests the possibility that domestication was discovered when a cut branch stuck in the earth for some other purpose took root. The realization that this technique could be used to select the more desirable wild forms for propagation would have eVectively constituted ‘domestication’. A similar phenomenon may have occurred with parthenocarpic figs at the terrestrial site of Gilgal I in the Jordan Valley (Kislev et al. 2006), where it has been suggested that the domestication of the fig dates as far back as 11400–11200 bp. There is no evidence in the archaeological record for the discovery of grafting, a technique which permits farmers to combine the desirable characteristics of a vigorous rootstock with a productive, more delicate fruiting scion. Historical sources make clear that it was well understood by Classical times, but how early, and where the practice began, is unknown.

It is not easy to pinpoint a moment in the archaeological record for ‘the domestication’ of the olive in part because it is not possible, even from later olive remains, to distinguish cultivated from wild olives by the morphology of the stones (Hansen 1985; 1988; Runnels and Hansen 1986). In the future, DNA profiles in conjunction with large-scale detailed morphological studies may help with the identification of wild and domestic plants, as well as with understanding the spread of olive varieties, but the results of research in this area are as yet inconclusive (Terral et al. 2004; Elbaum et al. 2006).

At Kfar Samir (Galili et al. 1997: 1143–7), two types of features were found containing remains of olive stones. The first type is an unlined circular pit (D. 0.60; depth 0.50 m) dug into hard clay, with a layer of limestone pebbles at the base. The pit contained alternate layers of olive remains (olive stones, 73% of them crushed, and olive pulp) and soft organic clay with fragments of waterlogged reeds, tree branches, and straw. This appears to be the remains of a simple olive press, where crushed olives in reed frails were placed on a framework of tree branches with rocks placed on top to provide the necessary pressure. Such a ‘press’ would certainly have produced small quantities of olive oil, though extraction would not have been very eYcient, and the process would have taken a long time. The other type of pit was similarly unlined and cut into the hard clay to a depth of 0.50 m deep and ranging in diameter from 0.50 to 1.00 m. These pits were filled with plant remains, mainly olive stones, most of which were crushed. They seem to represent the waste from olive crushing, which would have been useful as fuel or fodder. Large shallow stone basins, probably used for olive crushing, were also found on the site (Galili et al. 1997: 1145,).

The olive cannot be consumed by humans in its raw or untreated state. The finds at Kfar Samir demonstrate that the basic techniques of processing olives for oil are already well established here in the Late Neolithic period. However, it is intriguing to speculate on how humans came to discover the utility of the olive. One possibility is that olives were first exploited for fodder, since sheep and goats would have eaten fallen wild olives when grazing. If wild olive fruit had been gathered, stored, and perhaps bruised or crushed for fodder, it is possible that oil seeping out was observed, and that ways of retrieving this oil were then deliberately sought. The simplest table olives are produced by placing olive fruits in a container between layers of salt. In these maritime communities where salt would have been readily available it is certainly possible that the table olive was also discovered (Galili et al. 1997: 1148), but the evidence for this is less clear. In archaeological contexts where only (or mainly) whole olive pits are found, this is most likely to represent exploitation of the fruit for table olives, not the manufacture of olive oil (Forbes and Foxhall 1978).

Closer to Greece, in the eastern Mediterranean, olive stones appear in the pre-pottery Neolithic (c. 5500 bce) sites of Cape Andreas Kastros and Chirochitia in Cyprus (Runnels and Hansen 1986). Evidence for its domestication appears in Crete by the Late Neolithic period (fourth millennium bce) (Grove and Rackham 2001: 162) and is claimed to occur from the early Neolithic period (fifth millennium bce) in Spain (Terral and Arnold-Simard 1996). Less evidence for the use of the olive survives in the archaeobotanical record of mainland Greece before the late Bronze Age (Hansen 1988: 42–7; Boulotis 1996), but that may be in part an accident of preservation, since it does occur sporadically in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age assemblages.

The often repeated suggestion that Late Bronze Age palaces largely exploited wild olives (Sallares 1991: 306; Hansen 1988: 46; Brun 2004a: 78), based on a speculative interpretation of Linear B ideograms (Melena 1983), is unlikely to be correct (Foxhall 1995: 241–2). By the late Bronze Age there is clear evidence for relatively large-scale olive processing on Cyprus (Hadjisavvas 1992: 3, 21–6) and in Crete (Hamilakis 1996; 1999). On the basis of our present knowledge, it is not clear whether the cultivation of the olive and the technology of its processing were diVused from a single centre or were re-invented more than once in diVerent parts of the Mediterranean region.

By Lin Foxhall in "Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece:Seeking the Ancient Economy",published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 2007, excerpts p.10-13. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.  

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