Early Greece & Balkans Cultures

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa and the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see feature link, right).

The Magdalenian culture in Europe of circa 17,000 to 12,000 BC involved the classic 'reindeer hunters', although roe deer and horse amongst other animals were also hunted. However, this is where cultural complexity began as human populations increased.

Early human cultures become increasingly regional in order to define differences in archaeological terms. A potentially pan-European cultural framework soon becomes divided into archaeologically distinctive Northern Europe and Southern Europe. In the south it was the Epigravettian which led the way into the Mesolithic.

The landscape of what is now Greece, North Macedonia, southern Bulgaria, and part of Albania for the Greece section of this region and for the entirety of the Balkans was primarily formed through the collision between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates which closed the ancient Tethys Ocean to create today's Mediterranean Sea (see the Hominid Chronology for more on this, via the link, right).

The African plate in the eastern Mediterranean began a process of subduction as it was forced beneath the Aegean microplate. The gradual disruption over several million years caused some areas of land to drop under enormous pressure. This formed fertile valleys, gulfs, and even the Aegean sea basin, while uplifted blocks formed the rugged mountain ridges in this region.

The region's role in human development played a minimal part during the post-ice-age period which can be classified as Mesolithic Greece & Balkans. Available finds show that the population was thinly spread, not helped by a narrow literal zone across much of the Mediterranean coast which is backed by high mountains, along with a low tidal range and a relatively low range of food sources.

A far greater role was to be played in subsequent Neolithic Greece which played host to the first of a concentrated series of Neolithic Farmer cultures from about 6700 BC onwards. This took the form of the Sesklo culture, but a pre-Sesklo phase can be attributed to the period between about 7000-6700 BC. To the north the greatest proliferation of Neolithic cultures took place in what generally has been classified as Old Europe.

When that system collapsed during the Chalcolithic period a complicated hierarchical system emerged in the Balkans. Indo-European groups of the powerful Yamnaya Horizon integrated into former Neolithic communities to generate a vibrant mosaic in Bronze Age Greece of cultures and civilisations which emerged gradually into the early historical record from about 3600 BC onwards.

European Kingdoms

Early Cultures

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