"Fruit tree domestication"
The emergence of fruit tree horticulture in Chalcolithic southern Levant
Plant remains recovered from archaeological excavations indicate that the olive, grapevine, fig, date palm, and pomegranate were the first fruit trees to be domesticated in southwest Asia and Europe. Compared to the evidence for the origin of cultivated cereals and pulses in the Old World, the information on the beginning of horticulture is fragmentary.
The onset of this development, which can be considered part of the Secondary Product Revolution, is dated to ca. 7,000 years BP.
So far, the earliest worldwide evidence of fruit tree horticulture derives from 7,000-year-old strata of Chalcolithic Tel Tsaf, which is located outside the realm of olive natural distribution. In archaeobotany, this is considered indisputable proof of domestication (Langgut and Garfinkel, 2022; Science News).
