Black Pitted Olives

The earliest traces of wild olive trees date back to the Bronze Age, some 15,000 years ago. But the clearest early evidence of cultivation of the olive has been found in what today is Syria, dating to 6,000BC.

In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors took olive seedlings to the New World and planted them in Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile. Later, in the 18th century, missionaries planted olive groves in California.