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Wild or cultivated Olea europaea L. in the eastern Mediterranean during the middle—late Holocene? A pollen-numerical approach

Université de Toulouse, UPS, INPT, EcoLab (Laboratoire d'écologie fonctionnelle), 29 rue Jeanne Marvig, 31055 Toulouse, France, kaniewsk{at}cict.fr, CNRS, EcoLab (Laboratoire d'écologie fonctionnelle), 31055 Toulouse, France, Center for Archaeological Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Etienne Paulissen

Physical and Regional Geography Research Group, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Elise Van Campo

Université de Toulouse, UPS, INPT, EcoLab (Laboratoire d'écologie fonctionnelle), 29 rue Jeanne Marvig, 31055 Toulouse, France, CNRS, EcoLab (Laboratoire d'écologie fonctionnelle), 31055 Toulouse, France

Johan Bakker

Center for Archaeological Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Karel Van Lerberghe

Near Eastern Studies Unit, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculteit Letteren, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Marc Waelkens

Archaeology Unit, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Blijde Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Assessment of the wild or cultivated origin of Olea europaea L. during the middle to late Holocene according to pollen analyses is of palaeoecological and evolutionary interest as olive is thought to be one of the earliest cultivated trees and is still one of the most important fruit trees of the eastern Mediterranean. This paper considers data from the Bronze—Iron Age harbour-town, Tell Tweini, of the Ugarit Kingdom, in the Syrian coastal lowland near Jableh (17 m a.s.l.) and from the Hellenistic—Roman Moatra-Bereket (1410 m a.s.l.), in the territory of Sagalassos, in Turkey’s western Taurus Mountains. Both of these sites have recorded the rise and collapse of early eastern Mediterranean urban systems from 4200 to 1600 cal. yr BP. The Syrian data suggest that the Olea pollen-type originated from wild varieties during the Bronze and Iron Ages despite archaeological evidence for olive cultivation in the northern Levant. For Turkey, the results of the pollen-numerical analyses support the existing archaeological evidence of a wealthy oleoculture in Hellenistic and Roman Anatolia and suggest important anthropogenic pressures on local ecosystems.

Key Words: Holocene • Olea europaea L. • pollen • numerical analyses • southwest Turkey • Syrian lowland.

The Holocene, Vol. 19, No. 7, 1039-1047 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0959683609341000


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