13 Further reading History[edit]

7 Constituents
7.1 Phenolic composition
8 Nutrition
9 Popular uses and research
9.1 Skin
9.2 Potential health effects attributed to fat composition
10 Uses
10.1 Culinary use
10.2 Religious use
10.2.1 Judaism
10.2.2 Christianity
10.2.3 Islam
10.3 Other
11 See also
12 References
13 Further reading
History[edit]

Early cultivation[edit]
The olive tree is native to the Mediterranean basin; wild olives were collected by Neolithic peoples as early as the 8th millennium BC.[3] The wild olive tree originated in Asia Minor[4] or in ancient Greece.
It is not clear when and where olive trees were first domesticated: in Asia Minor in the 6th millennium; along the Levantine coast stretching from the Sinai Peninsula to modern Turkey in the 4th millennium;[3] or somewhere in the Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent in the 3rd millennium.


Ancient Greek olive oil production workshop in Klazomenai, Ionia (modern Turkey)
A widespread view exists that the first cultivation took place on the island of Crete. Archeological evidence suggest that olives were being grown in Crete as long ago as 2,500 BC. The earliest surviving olive oil amphorae date to 3500 BC (Early Minoan times), though the production of olive is assumed to have started before 4000 BC. An alternative view retains that olives were turned into oil by 4500 BC by Canaanites in present-day Israel.[5] Until 1500 BC, eastern coastal areas of the Mediterranean were most heavily cultivated. Olive trees were certainly cultivated by the Late Minoan period (1500 BC) in Crete, and perhaps as early as the Early Minoan.[6] The cultivation of olive trees in Crete became particularly intense in the post-palatial period and played an important role in the island's economy.
Recent genetic studies suggest that species used by modern cultivators descend from multiple wild populations, but a detailed history of domestication is not yet understood.[7]
Production and trade[edit]