{"id":1770,"date":"2011-02-08T09:29:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T09:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/11\/29\/939-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-07-10T12:35:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T12:35:05","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-societies-in-prehistoric-greece-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/02\/08\/the-rise-and-fall-of-societies-in-prehistoric-greece-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise and fall of societies in prehistoric Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ancient Greeks who presaged our philosophies, political systems, and\u00a0arts<\/a>\u00a0emerged in a land that had already been settled by mankind for tens of thousands of years. Despite what\u00a0some<\/a>\u00a0of them\u00a0believed<\/a>\u00a0the Greeks were not been born out of the Earth, but rather from the ashes of earlier societies. In Greece’s prehistory – the time before writing – entire societies, including palatial kingdoms and petty warlord states, and been born, grown to unprecedented heights, and\u00a0collapsed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prehistory\u00a0is the\u00a0time<\/a>\u00a0before writing. Without writing there is no first-hand evidence of history’s narrative. There is no one telling us why the change\u00a0occurred\u00a0or what life was like. The evidence is limited to\u00a0silent<\/a>\u00a0artefacts. The prehistory of\u00a0Greece\u00a0begins with the very first hunter-gatherers and ends with the recorded epic poems of\u00a0Homer\u00a0and\u00a0Hesiod\u00a0around 800BCE.<\/p>\n

Neolithic Greece<\/h3>\n

In the far past change was slow, the pace of development indiscernible and its forces so subtle as to be unseen. Since 35,000BCE the most recent\u00a0Ice Age\u00a0had been subsiding (with some interruptions), and as temperatures\u00a0warmed<\/a>\u00a0lands around the world became richer, and life, relatively speaking, easier. This increase in population would have continued at its glacial rate and finally plateaued but for an unprecedented invention around 9500BCE in the\u00a0near east<\/a>: agriculture. The gulf between pre- and post-agricultural life was immense: agriculture inducted the\u00a0Neolithic revolution, which witnessed populations explode, crops and animals domesticated, and pressure to form concentrated communities. People were forced to\u00a0cooperate<\/a>, and the possibility of surpluses introduced wealth and\u00a0luxuries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The slow warming of those thousands of years could only have been noticed by a strong inter-generational memory; without writing, life appeared unchanged. Nonetheless, the neolithic revolution reached Greece by 7000BCE, and the hunter-gathering culture was replaced by a farming culture[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/small>. Year-to-year innovation was non-existent, aside from brief flashes that redefined the Greek societies:\u00a0A thousand years later<\/a>\u00a0and the Greeks had pottery,\u00a0another three thousand\u00a0and they had ploughs.<\/p>\n

Bronze Age Greece<\/h3>\n

The beginnings of\u00a0Bronze Age\u00a0Greece (3000BCE) saw an increase in wealth, made possible by larger populations and new technologies, especially the plough. With the increased wealth came inequalities, and\u00a0inequalities<\/a>\u00a0spurred their own changes: Some communities began to build fortifications and ritualize the collection of luxuries.<\/p>\n

Mainland collapse<\/h4>\n

The bronze age Greeks were primitive compared with the great civilizations in the near east – Egypt had already been unified under a Pharoah and urban culture was beginning to coalesce in the Sumerian city-states. The Greeks were left even further behind their near eastern peers as their societies crumbled. Between 2300-2000BCE something unknown hit the Greeks, hard. Whatever the cause – and it remains\u00a0unknown<\/a>\u00a0– it caused irreversible damage. As accumulated wealth was lost, life became\u00a0desperate<\/a>, leaving records of itself only in the remains of burned fortifications all across the peninsula. As\u00a0settlements were reduced and trade ceased, mainland Greece entered its first dark age.<\/p>\n

The rise of the Minoans<\/h4>\n

But while culture on the mainland was crumbling, on the island of\u00a0Crete\u00a0society continued to flourish: the\u00a0Minoan civilization. The Minoans continued to produce artworks and pottery and had a writing script called\u00a0Linear A\u00a0(which incidentally has never been\u00a0deciphered). Their societies were based around administrative palaces with centralized\u00a0command economies: produce was brought into the palaces, taxed, and then redistributed.<\/p>\n

The rise of the Mycenaeans<\/h4>\n

As the Minoan civilization continued to thrive on Crete, protected by the surrounding ocean, a new culture was developing on the mainland. By 1700BCE a new age had begun:\u00a0Mycenaean Greece. Once again there was a concentration of power and wealth, fortifications were built and valuables collected. The powerful leaders of this age were warlords, and the art of this new culture displayed its interest in martial power and violence. They also developed a writing script, based on on the characters of Linear A: (imaginatively named)\u00a0Linear B\u00a0(which\u00a0has<\/em>\u00a0been deciphered).<\/p>\n

Between 1600BCE and 1400BCE something strange (from\u00a0our<\/a> distant perspective) happened: At the beginning of this time the Minoans were the master civilization, and their goods and culture overshadowed the mainland Mycenaeans. But by the end of this period, the Minoan culture had collapsed, so much so that their writing was replaced by that of the mainlanders. A\u00a0large volcanic\u00a0eruption\u00a0around this time could be responsible. It might have reduced the wealth of the Minoans sufficiently to destabilize the palace centres, and with them, sent the Minoan command economy into a downward spiral.<\/p>\n

The Dark Age<\/h4>\n

The great Greek dark ages were brought on by a major disintegration of the ancient world, called\u00a0the Bronze Age collapse. Between 1225-1175 the entire ancient world\u00a0edged and tipped<\/a>\u00a0into disaster. At the same time, the great palaces that had been built by the Mycenaeans were burned down, and large populations were displaced, sending refugee-like armies swarming across the ancient world. Even the mighty\u00a0Ugarit\u00a0and\u00a0Hittite\u00a0empires fell, while the\u00a0Egyptians\u00a0struggled against the marauding armies and lost large swaths of their kingdom.<\/p>\n

In Greece writing disappeared, art dwindled, populations shrunk, and societies regressed.<\/p>\n

Iron Age Greece<\/h3>\n

In Greece, the beginnings of the\u00a0Iron Age\u00a0coincided (incidentally) with the\u00a0dark ages. Between 1300 and 1000BCE the population of Greece was reduced to a third, and undoubtedly life was\u00a0wretched<\/a>. Yet all around were seemingly godlike ruins of the former Mycenaeans. The far past seemed like a magical time compared to contemporary life in a dark age. As a result, the Greek culture formed rich mythologies that looked back to a golden age and inspired\u00a0tales<\/a>\u00a0of a\u00a0heroic past<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Various forces intersected to bring an end to the dark ages: in the\u00a0Levant\u00a0the\u00a0Phoenicians\u00a0began to ply their merchant trade throughout the entire\u00a0Mediterranean Sea, richening the entire region in a joint economy. More generally, the ninth century (BCE) witnessed a renaissance across the ancient world. The change in global climate made the Mediterranean basin more fertile and made a population boom possible once more.<\/p>\n

Homer and the end of Greek prehistory<\/h3>\n

History as change is about\u00a0critical mass. All the necessary pieces came together in the eighth century to set things moving for the next\u00a0millennia: growing populations, improving technologies, long-distance trade, the establishment of laws and social orders,\u00a0and perhaps most importantly, the invention of the\u00a0Greek alphabet. The writings of Homer and Hesiod formed a backdrop against which these changes could express themselves, and in themselves, instantiated a new durability for\u00a0knowledge.<\/a>\u00a0With writing, knowledge could outlast a person’s lifetime, and the stories that form\u00a0history\u00a0could begin to accumulate. Societies could still rise and fall, but never again (not yet anyway) would they be so decimated as to lose their sense of where they’d come from.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong>: Wikipedia and the highly recommended book:\u00a0The Greeks<\/em>\u00a0by\u00a0Ian Morris\u00a0and\u00a0Barry B Powell<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Some people suspect that the farming proto-Indoeuropeans (the culture that spoke the root language that defines the bulk of Eurasia) may have spread into Europe (including Greece) at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ancient Greeks who presaged our philosophies, political systems, and\u00a0arts\u00a0emerged in a land that had already been settled by mankind for tens of thousands of years. Despite what\u00a0some\u00a0of them\u00a0believed\u00a0the Greeks were not been born out of the Earth, but rather from the ashes of earlier societies. In Greece’s prehistory – the time before writing – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,204,207],"tags":[208],"metadata":[158],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-everything2","category-history","tag-greek-history","metadata-shai_footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1741,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/12\/06\/fiskadoro-br-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1770,"position":0},"title":"Fiskadoro (BR)","author":"Pala","date":"December 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Fiskadoro\u00a0is\u00a0Denis Johnson's\u00a0second novel, published in\u00a01985. 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