The History of Olive Oil: From Ancient Groves to the Modern Mill
The history of olive oil begins long before anyone wrote it down. The earliest firm evidence comes from the southern Levant, where archaeologists have found thousands of crushed olive pits from roughly 7,000 to 7,600 years ago, and charred olive wood showing that people were growing olive trees about 7,000 years ago. From there the story runs through stone presses weighted with perforated rocks, prize jars of oil in ancient Athens, Roman amphorae shipped from southern Spain to London, an Arabic word that Spanish still uses, and finally the modern mill. This guide follows that path step by step, with every date and figure traced to a peer-reviewed study, a museum collection or a named reference work that we read for this article.
For the oil we make ourselves, see our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml).
The Short Answer
- Nobody "invented" olive oil. The earliest evidence of olive oil production is a mass of crushed olive pits from Kfar Samir, a now-submerged site on Israel's Mediterranean coast, dated to about 7,600–7,000 years ago (Barazani, Dag and Dunseth, Frontiers in Plant Science, 2023).
- Those first olives were probably gathered from wild trees. The clearest early evidence of cultivation is charred olive wood at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, dated to about 7,000 years ago (Langgut and Garfinkel, Scientific Reports, 2022).
- By the Early Bronze Age, from around 3600 BCE, pressing installations and oil-storage jars multiplied in the southern Levant, with trade to Old Kingdom Egypt part of the demand.
- In Athens, from the sixth century BCE, winners at the Panathenaic games received a jar holding about 42 quarts of olive oil from sacred groves in Attica (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
- Under Rome, oil from Baetica in southern Spain travelled the empire in Dressel 20 amphorae; one fragment in the London Museum was found in the City of London.
- Modern continuous mills do not press at all: they crush the olives, gently mix the paste and separate the oil in a centrifuge called a decanter.
A Timeline of Olive Oil History
The short version, with each row sourced in the sections below:
| Period | What happened | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| c. 7,600–7,000 years ago | Earliest known olive oil production, probably from wild olives | Crushed olive pits at Kfar Samir; plant-lipid residues in storage jars at Ein Zippori |
| c. 7,000 years ago | Olive trees grown outside their wild range: early cultivation | Charred olive wood at Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley |
| From c. 3600 BCE | Olive oil becomes economically important; presses and storage jars multiply | Early Bronze Age sites in the southern Levant; trade with Old Kingdom Egypt |
| 7th century BCE | Beam presses loaded with perforated stone weights | Olive oil installations at Tel Miqne-Ekron |
| From the 6th century BCE | Olive oil as an athletic prize in Athens | Panathenaic prize amphorae |
| 1st–3rd century CE | Olive oil shipped across the Roman Empire | Dressel 20 amphorae from Baetica (southern Spain), found as far as London |
| Medieval Iberia | Arabic gives Spanish its words for oil and olive | aceite and aceituna in the Real Academia Española dictionary |
| Today | Continuous milling: crush, malax, centrifuge | Peer-reviewed reviews of olive oil extraction technology |
Where Was Olive Oil Invented? The Earliest Evidence
The honest answer to "who invented olive oil?" is that no one did, and no single place can claim it. What archaeology offers instead is a trail of evidence, and the oldest part of that trail is in the southern Levant, the region of modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Lebanon.
A 2023 review in Frontiers in Plant Science by Oz Barazani, Arnon Dag and Zachary Dunseth sets out the sequence. Thousands of crushed olive pits at Kfar Samir, a site now under the sea off Israel's Mediterranean coast, provide the earliest evidence of olive oil production, at about 7,600–7,000 years before the present. Plant lipids found in storage jars of the same period at Ein Zippori, in the Galilee, support the idea that olives were being used for oil. Nearby, at Hishuley Carmel, underwater surveys found large amounts of olive pits in stone structures that the excavators suggest are the oldest evidence of preserving olives to eat.
Gathered first, grown later
The pits from these coastal sites vary a great deal in shape and size and resemble those of wild olives that still grow nearby, so the review concludes that the fruit was most probably gathered from wild trees rather than cultivated. Cultivation shows up a little later. At Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, Dafna Langgut and Yosef Garfinkel identified a large amount of charred olive wood from a site occupied around 7,200–6,700 years ago, well outside the wild olive's natural habitat. Their 2022 paper in Scientific Reports calls it one of the earliest examples of fruit-tree cultivation in the world.
The First Presses: Stone Basins, Beams and Weights
Once olives were grown on purpose, oil became something to make in quantity, store and trade. Barazani and colleagues describe how, in the Early Bronze Age, from around 3600 BCE, olive cultivation took on real economic importance in the southern Levant: pressing facilities and oil-storage jars multiplied, a growth they link partly to demand from Old Kingdom Egypt and to trade.
The basic method lasted for thousands of years and had two stages. First the olives were crushed into a paste in a stone basin. Then the paste was squeezed to release a mix of oil and watery juice, and the oil, being lighter, was separated off the top. A well-documented ancient example is at Tel Miqne-Ekron, an Iron Age city in modern Israel. A photograph in the archive of the American Society of Overseas Research shows a 7th-century BCE installation there: a crushing basin flanked by two presses, with four perforated stone weights opposite each press. In a beam press of this kind, stone weights hung from the end of a long wooden beam, which acted as a lever pressing down on the crushed olives.
Olive Oil in Ancient Greece and Rome
By the classical period, olive oil was woven into civic life as well as the kitchen. In Athens, it was literally the prize. The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that from the second quarter of the sixth century BCE, victors at the Panathenaic festival were awarded a standardised jar holding one metretes of olive oil, about 42 quarts, from sacred olive groves in Attica.
Rome turned olive oil into a long-distance trade. The London Museum holds the upper part of a globular amphora of the type archaeologists call Dressel 20, dated to the mid 1st to 3rd century CE. Its catalogue entry explains that these jars were used to export olive oil from Baetica, the Roman province in what is now southern Spain, and were made in the potters' workshops of the Guadalquivir valley, the centre of the olive oil trade. That particular fragment was found at the Guildhall in the City of London: oil pressed in Andalusia, carried to the edge of the empire.
The Olive in Scripture
Olive oil was food, fuel and a household staple across the ancient Near East, so it appears naturally in sacred texts. We keep this brief and point to our fuller articles.
In the Bible, the olive appears early: after the flood, the dove returns to Noah (AS) "and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off" (Genesis 8:11, King James Version). Deuteronomy 8:8 describes the promised land as "a land of oil olive, and honey". Our guide to olive oil in the Bible covers the lamp oil, the anointing oil and the Hebrew words behind them.
In the Qur'an, Allah swears "By the fig and the olive" (Surah At-Tin 95:1, Sahih International), and Surah Al-Mu'minun 23:20 speaks of "a tree issuing from Mount Sinai which produces oil and food [i.e., olives] for those who eat" (Sahih International). The Verse of Light, Surah An-Nur 24:35, describes a lamp "lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree" (Sahih International). Our guide to olive oil in the Quran and the Sunnah sets out every reference in context, with the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and their gradings. And because olive oil lit the ancient world for thousands of years, we have given the lamp its own article: olive oil lamps, how they work and their history.
Al-Andalus and the Arabic Word for Oil
One of the clearest traces of olive oil's history sits in a dictionary. In Spanish, the word for oil is aceite and the word for olive is aceituna. The Real Academia Española's dictionary traces aceite to Hispano-Arabic azzáyt, from Classical Arabic azzayt, and ultimately from Aramaic zaytā; aceituna comes from Hispano-Arabic azzaytúna, from Classical Arabic zaytūnah.
The words are a record of the centuries when Arabic was spoken across much of the Iberian Peninsula, including the south, the same region that had supplied Rome's oil. Spanish also has the word oliva, but for the everyday kitchen staple it uses the Arabic word. In Arabic itself, zayt means oil and zaytūn means olives, the same root that runs through the Qur'anic verses above. Our guide to Spanish olive oil covers what Spain puts in the bottle today.
From the Press to the Modern Mill
For most of history, every olive oil was a pressed oil: crush in a stone basin, squeeze, let the oil float, skim. The modern mill keeps the logic but changes the machinery. A 2019 review in Foods by Maria Lisa Clodoveo describes today's continuous extraction process in three main stages:
- Crushing. A mechanical crusher breaks the olives into coarse fragments. Clodoveo notes that crushing is deliberately not pushed too far, because extra mechanical energy heats the paste, which harms quality, and risks an emulsion that lowers the yield.
- Malaxation. The paste is slowly mixed so that small oil droplets join into larger ones. The review calls it a "necessary evil": essential for separating the oil well, but a stage where temperature, time and oxygen must be controlled.
- Centrifugal separation. The paste goes into a horizontal centrifuge, the decanter, which spins the oil away from the water and solids. No press is involved.
The review's central point is that a good extra virgin oil is a series of decisions, from the orchard to the bottle, about temperature, timing and exposure to air. That is also why "cold-pressed" survives as a phrase even in mills that no longer press; our article on what cold-pressed olive oil actually means explains the term, and our step-by-step guide to making olive oil walks through a modern mill in more detail.
What History Can and Cannot Tell You About a Bottle Today
Labels lean on a long history. Three common assumptions deserve a straight answer.
- "Ancient olive oil was purer." We cannot know that. The ancient world had no free-acidity tests or tasting panels, so there is no way to grade its oil by today's standards. "Extra virgin" is a modern grade defined by chemical and sensory limits, explained in our guide to what extra virgin olive oil is.
- "A region with a long olive history makes better oil." Tradition counts for something, but quality is decided bottle by bottle: the fruit, the time between picking and milling, the temperature, and the storage afterwards.
- "The oldest groves give the best oil." Ancient trees are remarkable survivors, but the age of a tree tells you little about the oil in a given bottle. The harvest date and how the oil has been kept tell you far more.
The practical checks that actually matter are in our guide to choosing a quality olive oil.
Why Sidr & Stone
We are a small part of a very old story: an olive farm on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco, on the far western edge of the olive's long journey across the Mediterranean world. We do not claim our oil is made the ancient way. What we can tell you is how it is made now, because we control every step from tree to bottle.
- Single-estate — Sidr & Stone grows its olives on its own family-owned farm near Marrakech, Morocco, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — no irrigation; the trees take what the season gives.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides are used (not yet certified; certification is in progress).
- Single harvest — a small, limited batch, picked when the fruit is ready; once it is gone, it is gone until the next harvest.
- Cold-pressed — mechanical extraction only, with no solvents, no refining and no deodorising, to preserve flavour, aroma and polyphenols.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, so a little natural sediment in the bottle is normal.
- 100% natural — one ingredient, olive oil, with nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — a 500ml bottle that protects the oil from light.
- 10% of profits to charity, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you ours is the best olive oil or the most authentic heir to seven thousand years of tradition; that is exactly the kind of claim this article has tried to test rather than repeat. What we will say is that it is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed, and that the details of the current batch are on the product page for you to check. Our article on single-estate olive oil explains why one origin matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the history of olive oil in brief?
Olive oil was first made from wild olives in the southern Levant about 7,000–7,600 years ago, and olive trees were being cultivated there by about 7,000 years ago. It became a major traded product in the Bronze Age, a prize in ancient Athens, an empire-wide trade under Rome, and today is usually made in continuous mills that separate the oil by centrifuge.
Where was olive oil first made?
The earliest evidence comes from the southern Levant: crushed olive pits at Kfar Samir, a submerged site on Israel's Mediterranean coast, dated to about 7,600–7,000 years ago, and olive-oil residues in storage jars at Ein Zippori in the Galilee.
How did ancient people make olive oil?
They crushed the olives into a paste in a stone basin, then pressed the paste, often with a wooden beam weighted by perforated stones, as at Iron Age Ekron. The oil floated on the watery juice and was skimmed off.
Did the ancient Greeks and Romans use olive oil?
Yes. In Athens, olive oil from sacred groves was awarded to winners at the Panathenaic games, and under Rome, oil from southern Spain was shipped across the empire in Dressel 20 amphorae, some of which reached London.
Is Sidr & Stone olive oil made the ancient way?
No, and we would not claim it. It is cold-pressed by mechanical extraction, with no solvents or refining, on modern equipment. The principle, crushing the fruit and separating the oil without heat or chemicals, is the one people have followed for millennia.
Why is olive oil called aceite in Spanish?
Because the word comes from Arabic. The Real Academia Española traces aceite to Hispano-Arabic azzáyt, from Classical Arabic azzayt and Aramaic zaytā, a legacy of the centuries when Arabic was spoken in medieval Iberia.
Where can I buy Sidr & Stone olive oil?
Directly from our product page, where it is available to pre-order as a limited single-harvest batch, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
The history of olive oil is unusually well documented for something so ordinary. Crushed pits on a drowned coastline, charred wood in the Jordan Valley, stone weights at Ekron, a prize jar in Athens, a broken amphora under the City of London and a word in a Spanish dictionary each record a stage in the same long story: people learning to grow the olive, press it, store the oil and move it across the world.
What the history does not do is vouch for any particular bottle. That depends on the fruit, the mill and the care taken since. Our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) — single-estate, rain-fed and cold-pressed — is available to pre-order as a limited single-harvest batch, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Our extra virgin olive oil is grown organically on our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech: we control every step from tree to bottle, and no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. It is not yet certified organic — certification is in progress, and we will publish it as soon as it comes through.
Sources
- Barazani O, Dag A, Dunseth Z. The history of olive cultivation in the southern Levant. Front Plant Sci. 2023;14:1131557. PMID: 36909452. doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1131557
- Langgut D, Garfinkel Y. 7000-year-old evidence of fruit tree cultivation in the Jordan Valley, Israel. Sci Rep. 2022;12(1):7463. PMID: 35523827. doi:10.1038/s41598-022-10743-6
- Galili E, Langgut D, Terral JF, et al. Early production of table olives at a mid-7th millennium BP submerged site off the Carmel coast (Israel). Sci Rep. 2021;11(1):2218. PMID: 33500447. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80772-6
- Clodoveo ML. Industrial Ultrasound Applications in the Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Extraction Process: History, Approaches, and Key Questions. Foods. 2019;8(4):121. PMID: 31013821.
- American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) Photo Collection. Olive Oil Installation – Tel Miqne-Ekron, Israel (PID000545). asor.org. Accessed 13 October 2026.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora (jar), ca. 520 BCE. metmuseum.org. Accessed 13 October 2026.
- London Museum. Amphora, Dressel 20 amphora (A13855), Roman, mid 1st–3rd century. londonmuseum.org.uk. Accessed 13 October 2026.
- Real Academia Española. Diccionario de la lengua española: "aceite" and "aceituna". dle.rae.es. Accessed 13 October 2026.
- The Qur'an, Sahih International translation: 23:20, 24:35, 95:1. quran.com. Accessed 13 October 2026.
- The Bible, King James Version: Genesis 8:11, Deuteronomy 8:8. biblegateway.com. Accessed 13 October 2026.
Disclaimer: This article summarises the history of olive oil from published archaeological research, museum collections and reference works available at the time of writing; dates are approximate, and new excavations may revise them. Scripture is quoted from the named translations. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.