Before 60.000 years
But when did the olive tree appear? The tree, indigenous to the
Mediterranean area, seems to have been around for thousands
of years. A fossilized leaf of the olea noti family has been found
at Kyme on Euboea, while evidence which proves the scattered
spreading out of the tree has been found in Provence in France
and in the countries of Northern Africa. This extremely old piece
of evidence fills you with awe for the antiquity of this tree.
It originates from the island of the Aegean, Santorini and Nisyros,
where professor Evangelos Velitzelos discovered fossilized
olive tree leaves aged fifty to sixty thousands years old! Experts
on Palaeobotany believe that what was discovered were leaves of
cultivated olive trees. The ancestor of the cultivated olive tree is
usually believed to be a variety of the still well-known
wild olive tree which can readily be seen on Crete, in the
Peloponnese and in other areas of Southern Greece,
Northern Africa and the Middle East.
 
Source: Nikos & Maria Psilakis: Olivenöl, die Kultur der Olive, Kreta, 2000