Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
Greece's position at the heart of the eastern Mediterranean and at the
crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, has long presented it with unique
opportunities and dangers. The Greeks are a people who have suffered
calamities, yet they have also achieved the highest reaches of human
accomplishment. In the areas of politics, philosophy, literature, science and
art, Greece has influenced Western society more than any other nation in
history; in the twenty-first century, it seems their economic policy may have
to be added to that list.
Prehistoric Greece: to 2100 BC
Evidence of human habitation in Greece goes back half a million years, as demonstrated
by the skeleton of a
Neanderthal
youth in the
Petralóna Cave
, 50km east of the northern
city of Thessaloníki, along with the earliest known site of a man-made fire in Europe.
Only very much later, about
40,000 years ago
, did
Homo sapiens
make his first
appearance in Greece after migrating out of Africa. At several sites in
Epirus
in
northwest Greece, Homo sapiens used tools and weapons of bone, wood and stone to
gather wild plants and hunt. Even between
20,000 and 16,000 years ago
, when the Ice
Age was at its peak,
Stone Age man
continued to make a home in Greece, though only
when the glaciers finally receded about
10,000 BC
did a considerably warmer climate set
in, altering the Greek environment to something more like that of present times.
The Neolithic period
Agricultural communities
first appeared in northern Greece around
6500 BC
. Whether
agriculture developed indigenously or was introduced by migrants from Asia Minor is
much debated: what is certain, however, is its revolutionary effect.
An assured supply of food enabled the Stone Age inhabitants of Greece to settle in
fixed spots, building mud-brick houses on stone foundations. Though still reliant on
stone implements, this new farming culture marked a significant break with the past,
so a “new stone age” or
Neolithic period
is said to have begun. As the flint needed for
weapons and tools was rare in Greece, mainlanders imported obsidian from the island
of
Melos
(Mílos) in the southern Cyclades. The earliest
seaborne trade
known
anywhere in the world, this clearly involved a mastery of building and handling boats.
Cycladic culture and the beginnings of the Greek Bronze Age
Around
3000 BC
a new people settled in the
Cyclades
, probably from Asia Minor,
bringing with them the latest metallurgical techniques. While continuing the old trade
in obsidian, they also developed a
trade in tin
and were making prodigious voyages
westwards as far as Spain by 2500 BC. The mining of
gold and silver
in the Cyclades
c.40,000 BC
c.6500 BC
c.3000 BC
c.2100 BC
Stone Age Homo sapiens
arrives in Greece.
Permanent communities
and the world's earliest
sea-borne trade herald
the Neolithic era.
In the Cycladic islands,
a new people introduce
striking new art forms. The
dawn of the Bronze Age.
The Greek language is
heard in Greece for the
first time.
