The Olive is one of the most cited plants in recorded literature. James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics) comments on the olive in 1779 as one of the foods preferred by the ancients and one of the most perfect foods.

There have been stories told about a sacred Greek olive tree that was 1600 years old. Several trees in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem are rumored to date back to the time of Jesus. In Italy there are trees that are claimed to date back to Roman times.

In Crete, there is an olive tree that is estimated to be over 2,000 years old; this age was determined by tree ring analysis. Maybe one of the most impressive Olive trees is on the island of Brijuni; Istria in Croatia, this well known olive tree has been calculated to be at least 1,600 years old. What makes this tree even more impressive is the fact that it continues to give fruit (about 30kg per year), and this fruit is then manufactured into top grade olive oil.

There is no definitive proof when olives first began to be cultivated for harvest. One of the earliest pieces of evidences supports the idea that the first demonstration of olive cultivation comes from what is now known as modern Jordan, from the Chalcolithic Period (End of the 5th millennium – beginning of the 3rd millennium BC) as discovered in the archaeological site of Teleiate Ghassul.