Olive trade in the Eastern Mediterranean : diversity and cultivation origin of Olive (Olea europaea) from the Mazotos Shipwreck (4th c. BC) using geometric morphometrics

Abstract

International audienceCenturies of cultivation, selection, trade and exchanges all around the Mediterranean have shaped the modern diversity of the olive tree, one of the emblematic tree of the Mediterranean region. The discovery of archaeological olive stones give us the opportunity to explore the history of olive cultivation and its varietal diversity. Indeed, the analysis of variation in olive stone shape allow the identification of different morphotypes, the interpretation of wild type and the characterization of several domesticated types.Thousands of waterlogged olive stones have been found in a shipwreck dated to the 4th c. BCE, located in the Mazotos sea area, southern Cyprus, at 45 m below the sea level. The ship was probably on its route from the Aegean to the Levant or Egypt, and it was carrying Chios amphorae from Northern Aegean and the Lycian coast, among which some contained olive fruits. This waterlogged material gives us the opportunity to characterize the varietal diversity of olives cultivated in the Aegean using geometric morphometrics, and to explore the trade of olives in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Classical period. To identify different morphotypes within the archaeological assemblage, 959 olive stones from Mazotos will be compared to an extended modern reference collection of 17 supposed wild populations and 55 traditional cultivated varieties from various origins (Terral et al. 2021). Comparison with material from the Levant and from Greece is expected to give insights into the history of olive diversity in Eastern Mediterranean. Our study aims also at providing clues to the geographical origin of the olives from Mazotos, whose results will be confronted with the carbon stable isotope analysis that revealed their multiple origins (Briggs 2018)