The Arabs applied their extensive knowledge to improving the yield of Spanish olive groves and their language thus gave us words such as almazara (olive press), acebuche (wild olive tree) and even the word aceite (oil) itself, which comes from the Arabic az-zait. It was in the 19th century that the number of hectares devoted to olive tree cultivation increased spectacularly, with Andalusia making up 90% of olive-growing hectarage. This served as the basis that has allowed Spain to now be the leading olive oil producer in the world..


HISTORICAL ORIGIN.

The olive tree, an irrefutable leading feature of Mediterranean agriculture, has a long history linked to the evolution of mankind and cultures which, like wheat and vine, have been the staple foods of the peoples on the shores of the Mare Nostrum (Mediterranean Sea).

The Olea europeae species to which the olive tree belongs has a hybrid origin. It is possibly the result of the crossing of species close to it such as the Olea africana, originating from Arabia and Egypt, the Olea ferruginea, from Asia and the Olea laperrini, from the south of Morocco.

The only definite thing is that at some time in history a miracle occurred: from the interbreeding of different species a tree came about, the olive, which with the passing of time was to become a sacred and mythological tree.

Fossils of leaves found in the south of the Cyclades archipelago are testimony to the fact that the olive tree's ancestor already existed in the Paleolithic era, 35000 B.C. The oldest remains found in Spain are those from El Garcel (Almería) and date from Neolithic times (5000 B.C.).

That first olive tree was quite possibly very similar in shape to the wild or non-farmed olive tree that we now know as acebuche or wild olive tree. This scientifically corresponds to the Olea europeae species of the oleaster variety.

The most recent paleobotanical analyses affirm that the olive tree was present in its wild form throughout the Mediterranean basin: from El Garda, the northern limit of cultivation where relics from the Bronze Age have been found, up to Morocco, the extreme south where the Grotte Rassel site bears witness to the fact that the wild olive tree has existed in the north of Africa ever since the 12th millennium B.C.

Other theories affirm that the olive tree's ancestor appeared much earlier. Some people claim it was in the Villafranchian period and others in the Tertiary Age when it reached the Mediterranean, spread and grew spontaneously along the shores of our precious Sea.


CULTIVATION ORIGIN

The domestication of the wild olive tree and its consequent farming by man occurred around the beginning of the Neolithic period, towards 6000-5000 B.C., and possibly in the species' area of origin, the Syrian-Iranian area of Asia Minor.

Another theory suggests that the olive tree began to be grown in the same area but nearer the shores of the Mediterranean, along the coasts of Lebanon and Palestine. The Phenician settlements in these areas must have been those that domesticated the wild olive tree and made it fit for cultivation for the first time in history.

All these theories agree that the expansion of cultivation in the Mediterranean resulted from the extension of the eastern culture towards the west.

It would first have been the coast of Egypt, the island of Crete or an island in the Hellenic archipelago.

Later on it reached continental Greece and Sicily, from where cultivation spread throughout the whole Italian Peninsula. The Phenicians, from their most western colonies in the north of Tunisia, undertook to spread the cultivation of the olive tree throughout the western Mediterranean.

At the end of the second millennium cultivation of the olive tree had spread widely through Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and the Hellenic archipelago

Archaeological remains from old mills found in Egypt, Crete and Palestine reveal that olive oil making techniques were already well known and implemented at the end of the second millennium. .