Apple trees reproduce poorly when apples that fall from the tree are left to rot where they fell. Even when those do grow up, the second-generation trees grow poorly when too close to their parents. Apple trees in the wild therefore rely on animals – such as humans – to disperse their apples and so disperse their offspring. The fossil record suggests that apple trees developed across Europe and Asia as early as 11.6 million years ago. Animals (and eventually hominins) have been using apples for their easy source of nutrients ever since.
The earliest evidence of hominins eating apples comes from a Neolithic site in Switzerland dating to 3160 BCE. And the first evidence of apple seeds around hominins, suggesting active domestication, comes from the first millenium BCE at a village site in Kazakhstan.
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