Olive cultivation in Sicily as early as 3,700 years ago: international research reveals the ancient origins of the Mediterranean landscape
The olive tree is one of the most iconic symbols of the Mediterranean basin, whose earliest use and cultivation practices were developed in the Near East starting around 7,000 years ago. However, the beginning of olive cultivation in southern Europe is still debated by scholars.
Recent research, led by the University of Tuscia together with an international team including Sapienza University of Rome, University of Pisa, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Nevada, investigated the spread of the olive tree over the last 3,700 years. The study, published in 'Quaternary Science Reviews', shows that the indigenous peoples of Sicily introduced the cultivation of this plant as early as the 18th century BC, several centuries before the hypotheses accepted until now.
The researchers examined lake sediment samples from Pantano Grande, one of the two brackish lakes in the province of Messina, Sicily, and found numerous fossil pollen remains that can be used to reconstruct the resource use practices of the peoples who lived in the area over the last 4,000 years or so.
Pollen analyses revealed that the olive tree, cultivated in Sicily since at least a thousand years before the arrival of the first Greek settlers, was widely grown during the Bronze Age, the Roman period, and the modern era and was used for a variety of purposes: from oil production, to timber production, to fodder for animals.
In addition, the data showed that the olive tree owes its wide distribution in the Mediterranean to human activity rather than climate change. ‘Although environmental conditions played a role,’ says Laura Sadori, professor at Sapienza and co-author of the study, ‘it was human societies that, through trade, agriculture and cultural exchanges, determined when and where the olive tree thrived’.
In particular, the Strait of Messina, an important commercial crossroads, favoured interactions between different peoples, especially the Mycenaeans and the Cypriots. It was precisely these contacts, which are attested in Sicily by artefacts found in various archaeological exchanges, that, according to researchers, promoted the olive tree among Sicilian communities over other plant species, creating an archaic form of olive grove landscape in the Mediterranean.
‘The study contributes to rewriting the history of the olive tree in Italy and the central Mediterranean,’ concludes Alessia Masi, researcher at Sapienza and co-author of the study, ‘showing how human agricultural and cultural practices have profoundly shaped the Mediterranean landscape for millennia.
References
Jordan Palli, Sabina Fiolna, Monica Bini, Federico Cappella, Adam Izdebski, Alessia Masi, Scott Mensing, Lorenzo Nigro, Gianluca Piovesan, Laura Sadori, Giovanni Zanchetta, The human-driven ecological success of olive trees over the last 3700 years in the Central Mediterranean, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 356, 2025, 109313, ISSN 0277-3791, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109313
Further Information
Laura Sadori
Department of Environmental Biology
Alessia Masi
Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale
Lorenzo Nigro
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
Federico Cappella
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità