Ancient Olives

 Another day of spectacular views, natured harvested to making the good things of life and a general sense of long sigh and deep breath.  Not much to review so let’s talk olive trees.

Fossil evidence indicates that the olive tree had its origins 20–40 million years ago in the Oligocene - so, no dinosaurs in the frame.  Around 100,000 years ago, olives were used by humans in Africa, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, certainly for fire wood and probably for food,  Wild olive trees, or oleasters, have been collected in the Eastern Mediterranean since  about 17,000 BC. The genome of cultivated olives suggests their origin from oleaster populations in the Eastern Mediterranean. By 5000BC olives were being cultivated. 

As far back as 3000 BC, olives were grown commercially in Crete and may have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan civilization.  It seems olives were chiefly as a source of oil.

An olive tree in Mouriscas, Abrantes, Portugal, (Oliveira do Mouchão) is one of the oldest known olive trees still alive to this day, with an estimated age of 3,350 years, planted approximately at the beginning of the Atlantic Bronze Age. The village of Bcheale, Lebanon, claims to have the oldest olive trees in the world (4000 BC for the oldest), but no scientific study supports these claims. Other trees in the towns of Amioun appear to be at least 1,500 years old  As for Spain, an olive tree called Farga d'Arió in Ulldecona, Catalonia, has been estimated using  laser-perimetry methods to date back to 314 AD, which would mean that it was planted when Constantine the Great was Roman emperor. I think that is rather gob smacking.  I mean, the idea of an oak being planted by a newly arrived Norman settler is one thing, but the idea of a tree witnessing almost 2000 years is a bit gobsmacking.  

The tree has a website.  https://turismeulldecona.cat/en/ancient-olive-trees/ It is about 40-50km to the south of us.  But we can not spare time, we must push on.