Olive growing in Puglia (southeastern Italy): a review of the evidence from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages

摘要

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the history of the olive in Puglia, southern Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, including evidence from various sources. The primary source of information is from archaeological sites, where the remains have been found of olive pollen, stones and wood charcoal, olive presses and pottery kilns for making amphorae for transporting olives or their oil. The survey also includes data from pollen sequences from natural sites and from written documents referring to olive groves. Our study shows that olives have been cultivated since the Early Neolithic, but it is only during the Middle Bronze Age that the domestic type appeared in the region, a consequence of selective cultivation of the wild type. The domestication of the olive had been completed by the first half of the 1st millenniumbc, during the Iron Age-Archaic period, when remains of olives appear outside their area of natural distribution. The increasing exchanges with the Greeks during the Hellenistic period favoured the spread of olive cultivation and led to the construction of olive presses for oil extraction. The Roman conquest promoted the production of olive oil, which was successfully traded during the Republican and Early Imperial periods. After the Roman period ended, economic developments and political turmoil led to a decrease in olive growing, which did not fully recover until the Norman period in the 12th centuryad. Later, under the Swabians, olives became a key crop and a major asset for the economy of Puglia.