HISTORY OF OLIVE OIL
The oldest available data on the olive tree are 39,000-year-old olive leaf fossils unearthed during archaeological studies on Santorini Island in the Aegean Sea. In the archaeological researches carried out in the Sahara region in North Africa, it was found in the BC. Findings of 12,000 olive trees were found. It is not known when and by which civilization the first olive harvest was made. History dates the most obvious traces of olive oil production to the Cretan Civilization in the middle of the Mediterranean, BC. It shows that it dates back to 4500 BC. The Cretans played the most important role in the spread of olive oil culture to other tribes in the Mediterranean; and for about 3000 years. The most vivid witnesses of the olive oil trade carried out by the Cretans, who have strong trade fleets, are the 2-meter olive oil jars found among the ruins of the palaces of Knossos and Faistos. On the tablets found together with these giant jars called “Pithoi”, there is information about where the olive oil trade of that day was made and where the olive oil was produced.
Centuries later, the olive tree was transported to North and South America by Spanish explorers and missionaries between AD 1500 and 1600. In the 1800s, the seedlings brought with them by Italian immigrants reached the southern and western American regions. Then, thanks to the Mediterranean immigrants, the olive tree reached Australia and South Africa.