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David J.Mattingly
should have been widely traded, given the ubiquity of the olive around the Mediterranean. 1 But when it is appreciated that regional production will have tended to follow an irregular pattern of gluts and shortfalls, and that it was inadvisable to hold large stocks of oil for more than a year or two against potential future shortages, it should be clear that there will almost always have been a need for oil imports somewhere, and a surplus for disposal somewhere else. The natural unpredictability and quirkiness of the olive harvest may have been an indirect stimulus for the development of inter-regional trade. The archaeology of the ancient olive There are many strands of archaeological evidence pertaining to the olive: palaeobotanical data, traces of ancient orchards, olive mills and presses, amphorae used to transport oil (with valuable epigraphic detail stamped or painted on the vessels in some cases), and a rich iconography of the olive in ancient art.2 Moreover, recent developments in archaeology, notably the growth in field survey, provide new opportunities for evaluating the importance of oleoculture in the ancient landscape. A few examples will demonstrate the potential significance of the material at our disposal. A detailed excavation of an ancient olive orchard was carried out inadvertently by an Italian prehistorian excavating the neolithic village of Passo di Corvo in Apulia (Tine 1983, 43–5). His initial trenches within two neolithic ditched enclosures appeared to have located massive rectangular hall-like buildings. The picture became more complicated for him when he excavated the area in between his enclosures and found evidence for further rectangular structures. It was only after several further seasons of painstaking work that he was obliged to admit that he had been 1 cf. Finley 1985, 133: ‘Greek (and Roman) cities were also large consumers of olive oil. Given this latter fact and the ubiquity of the olive tree, where were the external markets for the export of this commodity …?’ 2 Amouretti 1986; Amouretti and Comet 1985; Amouretti and Brun eds 1993; Brun 1986; Heltzer and Eitam eds 1987; Frankel et al. 1994; Leveau et al. 1993.