information:extraction
Agricultural history

Dates have been cultivated in the Middle East and the Indus Valley for thousands of years, and there is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in Mehrgarh, a Neolithic civilization in western Pakistan, around 7000 BCE and in eastern Arabia between 5530 and 5320 calBC. Dates have been cultivated since ancient times from Mesopotamia to prehistoric Egypt. The ancient Egyptians used the fruits to make date wine and ate dates at harvest. Evidence of cultivation is continually found throughout later civilizations in the Indus Valley, including the Harappan period from 2600 to 1900 BCE.

One cultivar, the Judean date palm, is renowned for its long-lived orthodox seed, which successfully sprouted after accidental storage for 2,000 years. In total seven seeds about 2000 years old have sprouted and turned into trees named Methuselah, Hannah, Adam, Judith, Boaz, Jonah and Uriel. The upper survival time limit of properly stored seeds remains unknown. A genomic study from New York University Abu Dhabi Center for Genomics and Systems Biology showed that domesticated date palm varieties from North Africa, including well-known varieties such as Medjool and Deglet Nour, share large parts of their genome with Middle East date palms and the Cretan wild palms, P. theophrasti, as well as Indian wild palms, Phoenix sylvestris.

An article on date palm tree cultivation is contained in Ibn al-'Awwam 's 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture.