Oldest use of olive by Homo sapiens

Since their discovery in 1956 and 1977, the caves of El Mnasra and El Harhoura have delivered valuable archaeological discoveries from the Paleolithic. These are, for example, stone and bone tools or worked shells. The caves of the Rabat-Temaria region therefore play an important role in the research (Scientific research designates in the first place all the actions undertaken with a view to…) on the evolution and diffusion (In everyday language, the term diffusion refers to a notion of…) of the’male (A man is an adult male individual of the species called Modern Man (Homo…) modern in Africa (With an area of ​​30,221,532 km2 including the islands,…).

The olive tree is one of the first cultivated trees. It’s a plant (Plants (Plantae Haeckel, 1866) are multicellular beings at the base of the…) emblematic of the Mediterranean Basin. The first evidence of its presence in archaeological contexts is dated 790,000 years ago. Here we report an early use of the wild olive 117,000 years ago. Coals from wild olive trees and broken and charred olive pits were discovered in the residues of combustion (Combustion is an exothermic redox chemical reaction. When the…) in the caves of El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra (Morocco). These results reveal the presence of the wild olive tree in the most western part of the Mediterranean Basin during the last glaciation (A glaciation or ice age is both a cold paleoclimatic phase…) and its use for key livelihood strategies such as consumption and combustible (A fuel is a material which, in the presence of oxygen and energy, can…). They also shed new light on the relationship between taphonomy and representativeness of anthracological assemblages in context (The context of an event includes the circumstances and conditions surrounding it; the…) archaeological.

In this article, we present the results of a study which shows that in Morocco during interglacial interstadial 5 (Eemian), modern humans living in the caves and rock shelters of the Moroccan Atlantic coasts made extensive use of plant resources. of their environment (The environment is everything that surrounds us. It is all the natural elements and…) and in particular the wild olive tree. These results are established by a consortium of French, European and Moroccan researchers.

This research was conducted under the supervision of Thierry Otto of the Ecology Laboratory functional (In mathematics, the term functional refers to certain functions….) and environment, by examining charcoals and fragments of cores from two caves in the north (North is a cardinal point, opposite to south.) from Morocco. The study was published in the journal Nature Plants.

In the Mediterranean Basin, the olive and its derivatives have been used intensively by man since the Neolithic period, particularly as food, fuel, source of light (Light is the set of electromagnetic waves visible to the eye…)in medicine (Medicine (from the Latin medicus, « that heals ») is the science and the…) and in cosmetic (A cosmetic is a substance or mixture intended to be put into…). 6000 years ago, the olive tree was one of the first trees to be cultivated for its oil (Oil is a generic term for fats that are at…). The olive is even mentioned in mythology and religions due to its great importance. But if we go back further in the weather (Time is a concept developed by human beings to apprehend the…), discoveries are rare – which could be due to the fact that the olive tree was not very widespread in the past. During the last ice age, the wild olive tree grew mainly on the Atlantic coast of Morocco and in the south (South is a cardinal point, opposite to north.) of the Iberian Peninsula.

Conscious use

Admittedly, the studies could not clearly demonstrate that olives were also consumed and not only used as fuel. It would be possible that whole olive branches were thrown into the fire (Fire is the production of a flame by an exothermic chemical reaction of oxidation…) and that the fruits attached to it simply burned, the scientists explain. However, the fact that the olive pits found are broken into many small pieces argues against this. All (The whole understood as the whole of what exists is often interpreted as the world or…) therefore suggests that people first used the pulp of the fruit (In botany, the fruit is the plant organ protecting the seed….) and then deliberately broke the pits (using almond) before throwing them into the fire to dispose of the waste.

Olive stones contain a lot of oil and lignin, a molecule (A molecule is an electrically neutral chemical assembly of at least two atoms, which…) responsible for wood formation. Residues of broken olive pits produce a burning fire slow (The Lente is a river in Tuscany.) which is very suitable for cooking. Dried core fragments additionally produce flames without smoke (Smoke, sometimes called smoke in North America, is a cloud of particles…)which would have been a great advantage, especially for cave dwellers.

The other point (graphics) important to this discovery is the great number (The notion of number in linguistics is treated in the article « Number…) fragments (stones and carbons) of olive compared to other potential taxa. In very many sites, when the list of taxa present is examined, it is found that it is never made up of a list comprising only a majority taxon. In our case, the olive tree is very largely in the majority.

This led us to discuss the effects of fragmentation which causes the most fragile charcoals to fragment to the point of no longer appearing in the results of the excavations. Only the olive tree whose wood and cores have a sufficiently dense structure seem to have resisted.

CNRS laboratories involved:
– Laboratory of functional ecology and environment (LEFE – CNRS / UPS / INPT)
– Archaeozoology, Archaeobotany: Societies, practices and environments (AASPE – CNRS/MNHN)
– Archaeological work and research on cultures, spaces and societies (TRACE – CNRS / University (A university is an institution of higher education whose objective is the…) Toulouse Jean-Jaures)
– Natural History (The process of observation and systematic description of nature begins as soon as…) of Prehistoric Man (HNHP – CNRS / MNHN)

Reference:
L.Marqer, T.Otto, et al. The first use of olives in Africa around 100,000 years ago, Nature Plants, March 22, 2022.

contacts:
– Thierry Otto – Functional Ecology and Environment Laboratory (CNRS/Univ Toulouse Paul Sabatier/INP Toulouse) – thierry.otto at univ-tlse3.fr
– Catherine Donati – Correspondent communication (Communication concerns both man (intra-psychic, interpersonal communication, etc.) – Functional Ecology and Environment Laboratory (CNRS/Univ Toulouse Paul Sabatier/INP Toulouse) – catherine.donati at univ-tlse3.fr