The oldest olive oil in Europe was made in Castelluccio over 4000 years ago, remains of which were found in a ceramic jar and other
terracotta fragments in the 1990’s. The fragments of the jar were analysed by the Italian team of Decide Tanasi, which works in the
American University of South Florida. Researchers have identified traces of
oleic and
linoleic acids, which are the signatures of olive oil in the ceramic jar found during excavations at an archaeological site in Castelluccio di
Noto in the 1990s. The restorers had completely reconstructed the ceramic jar, obtained by recomposing 400 fragments; it is one meter high it has a shape of an egg, with three handles on the sides. The results were published in the
Analytical Methods journal. This discovery pushes by 700 years the previous finding of the most ancient history of olive oil. == See also ==