The earliest evidence to date that humans produced olives for food has been found at the underwater Chalolithic site Hishuley Carmel off the coast of Haifa – indicating that inhabitants of the region consumed olives some 6,600 years ago, some 4,000 years earlier than previously believed.
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In an article published in Scientific Reports, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, the Volcani Center – Agricultural Research Organization and other research institutes in Israel and abroad fits into the timeline of human's use of the olive tree and its products.
The article details the discovery at the sits of "large quantities" of table olives. Researchers explain that the site's proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, likely provided a source of sea water and salt to use in the curing process.
The researchers said that while the ancient olive pit morphometry resembled wild olives, they "could not exclude the possibility" that the olives at the site had been harvested from cultivated trees.
Researchers noted that the patterns of fragmentation and morphometry of the olive pits found at Hishuley Carmel were compared to similar findings from the nearby underwater site Kfar Samir, which has already been identified as the site of large-scale olive oil production.
The article provides some basic background on the cultivation and use of olive products. The extraction of olive oil predated the consumption of the fruit itself, and dates to approximately 7,000 years ago. As yet, there is no date for when olives were first cured for consumption.
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