GRST chapter 2: The Greek Bronze Age

When does history begin?

According to tradition, the date is 776 BCE

Neolithic period

(beginning around 7000 bce)

the rise of Minoan culture on the island of Crete during the Middle Bronze Age

(c. 1900 bce)

the rise of the Mycenaeans on the Greek mainland in the Late Bronze Age

(1700 bce)

Greek prehistory ends with the

collapse of Mycenaean civilization around 1050 bce

Later Greeks were fascinated by their past, but they did not have written records before

776 bce and they lacked the methods and techniques of archaeology to inform their understanding of prehistory.

labyrinth

from labrys, an imported word to Crete meaning “double axe”. Place of the double axe

These stories have their origin in what today we call the Late Bronze Age, primarily dating to the

last half of the second millennium bce (c. 1600–1100 bce)

period of Homeric epic

(c. 800 bce)

the Stone Age and the Early Bronze Age of Greece, which covers almost

300,000 years

The primary focus of this unit is the second millennium bce,

the 1,000-year period that is well preserved in the archaeological record and is an active field of research and teaching.

the second millennium BCE period is sometimes referred to as the

Minoan and Mycenaean ages

The Minoans of Crete emerge around

2000 bce

the Mycenaean Greeks of mainland Greece around

1700 bce.

The Greek Stone Age began roughly

2.5 million years ago and lasted until the Neolithic period (7000-3200 BCE)

Society changed greatly over this long time span,

when humans went from being migratory hunters and gatherers to becoming seasonal cave dwellers and then living as settled agriculturalists (farmers and shepherds) and building permanent communities with diversified activities such as making stone tools, firing clay vessels, and weaving textiles.

The most complete set of data for the earliest inhabitants of Greece comes from

Franchthi Cave in the southern Peloponnese, the longest occupied site in Greece,

Franchthi Cave was excavated between 1967 and 1976 by American archaeologists who imported techniques called

New Archaeology

New Archaeology

A school of thought in the history of archaeology beginning in the late 1960s. Applies methods of anthropological sciences to archaeology for issues of dating, environmental reconstruction, and understanding ancient diets.

radiocarbon dating

A scientific technique applied to once living things (bones, seeds, wood) to measure the rate of carbon-14 decay.

Franchthi Cave was occupied for over 20,000 years, until the beginning of

the Bronze Age (3000 bce).

soil flotation at Franchthi Cave

The process of filtering excavated soil through a water sieve; it helps in the reconstruction of ancient diets.

The Neolithic period marked significant changes in the

early prehistory of the Greek world, and many “firsts” are found at Franchthi Cave

One of the earliest adults (from the Middle Neolithic period) was a

39-year-old woman with whom an early fired clay pot and bone tools, likely for ceramic production, were found.

• first “potter” in Greece was a woman

Thessaly

An area in north central Greece well known for its fertile plains.

the Early Bronze Age

(c. 3000–2000 bce)

At several Early Bronze Age sites we see a significant amount of

gold and evidence of prosperity, giving rise to what is known as the gold horizon

the gold horizon

a period of wealth that does not continue into the Middle Helladic period

The most important discovery at the archaeological site of Lerna from the Early Bronze Age is a

large corridor house,

• the house of the tiles

The Aegean Bronze Age is traditionally divided into three chronological phases

Early Bronze Age (c. 3300–2000 bce), the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1700 bce), and the Late Bronze Age (1700–1100 bce).

Aegean Bronze Age: the periods cover a large and diverse geographic area

mainland (or Helladic) Greece, which includes the Peloponnese; the islands, primarily the Cyclades, but also Euboea, the Sporades, and the Dodecanese, among others; and the island of Crete (Minoan)

Arthur Evans

devised the tripartite division from Egyptian chronolgy

On mainland Greece, by 2000 bce, settlements were fewer and smaller in comparison to

the Early Bronze Age.