Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Farmers selected trees for bigger fruit and more oil thousands of years ago. The figure is taken from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a food fact?

Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Olives were domesticated in the Near East

Farmers selected trees for bigger fruit and more oil thousands of years ago The wild olive is a scrubby Mediterranean tree with small, bitter fruit, and domesticated forms appear in the Levant around six thousand years ago. Growers favoured trees that rooted readily from cuttings, which fixed desirable traits, and presses for oil appear in the archaeological record soon after. Olive oil became a staple of trade across the Bronze Age Mediterranean. It sits in Mondo's food collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: olive, mediterranean, oil

Olives were domesticated in the Near East: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Farmers selected trees for bigger fruit and more oil thousands of years ago. The figure is taken from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a food fact?: Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.