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European Kingdoms

Early Cultures

 

Early Greece (Bronze Age)
Incorporating the Early Bronze Age (c.3200-2000 BC), Helladic Culture (c.2800-1105 BC), Middle Bronze Age (c.2000-1600 BC), & Late Bronze Age (c.1600-1050 BC)

FeatureThe system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. The task of cataloguing the vast range of human cultures which emerged from Africa and the Near East right up until human expansion reached the Americas is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

Subsequent cultural complexity appeared, dividing a single European culture into two zones: Northern Europe and Southern Europe. Within the latter region, the Early Greece & Balkans area formed a southern zone below the Balkans and the later part of the Epigravettian culture which also incorporated Greece. This southern zone covered today's Greece, North Macedonia, southern Bulgaria and part of Albania.

The region's role in human development was minimal during Mesolithic Greece, but was far greater in the subsequent Neolithic Greece which then transitioned into an early metal-making Chalcolithic (Copper Age, otherwise known in this region as the 'Final Neolithic').

When that system collapsed 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 Bronze Age mosaic of cultures and civilisations which emerged gradually into the early historical record.

The 'Early Bronze Age' between about 3200-2000 BC covers the discovery of mixing copper with tin to create a harder, more durable metal in the form of bronze. This revolutionised tool-making, weapons, and crafts, and laid the foundations for Greece's first major civilisation.

The term 'Helladic Culture' largely copies dating for the stages of the Bronze Age while ensuring a specific focus on Greece itself and a fine-tuned sub-division of the three main Bronze Age stages. The system also compliments the older dating system for the Minoan civilisation.

The 'Early Bronze' can be sub-divided into 'Early Helladic I' (c.3200-2650 BC), a transitional period in which small farming communities began experimenting with copper and early bronze. The 'Early Helladic II' period (c.2650-2200 BC) witnessed significant economic prosperity with growing towns, monumental architecture, and expanded specialised craft production.

'Early Helladic III' (c.2200-2000 BC) was a turbulent transitional phase which was characterised by widespread destruction and the abandonment of many key settlements. This would appear to coincide with the earliest likely arrival date for the proto-Mycenaeans, although that arrival is more likely to have taken place during the next phase.

The 'Middle Bronze Age' of about 2000-1600 BC contains the 'Middle Helladic' of about 2000-1550 BC. This is often viewed as a period of cultural retrogression and transition. It witnessed a reduction in metals and imports, being dominated by smooth, wheel-made grey pottery which is known as 'Minyan ware'.

The 'Late Bronze Age' of about 1600-1050 BC contains the 'Late Helladic' of about 1550-1105 BC. This is synonymous with Mycenaean culture at its glorious height. Driven by a strong Minoan influence it saw the construction of massive palaces, the use of Linear B script for administrative records, and rich elite burials such as the shaft graves at Mycenae.
Egtved girl of the Bronze Age

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from The Magdalenian Settlement of Europe, Quaternary International Volumes 272-273 (2012), from Communities in Transition. The Circum-Aegean Area During the 5th and 4th Millennia BC Søren Dietz et al (Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens No 20, Oxbow Books, 2018), and from External Links: The Genetic History of Ice Age Europe (Nature 2016), and Dietary Change from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages in the Iron Gates, C Bonsall (Lead Author, Cambridge University Press, 18 July 2016), and The Beginning of the Ancient Greek Bronze Age, Natasha Sheldon (History and Archaeology Online: Rediscovering the Past), and History of Greece: Bronze Age (Ancient-Greece.org).)

EARLY CULTURES INDEX

King list Minoan Civilisation
(c.3000 BC)

Excavations have shown that Crete was inhabited from the Neolithic period (by 6000 BC and perhaps even earlier), perhaps by island-hopping from Greece or Anatolia.

King list Pelasgians
(c.3000 BC)

The term Pelasgian (or Pelasgoi) was used broadly by the Classical Greeks to denote many groups of pre-Hellenic peoples in Greece, Crete, and beyond, on the islands.

King list Leleges
(c.2000 BC)

This name was used by the Classical Greeks to denote one fairly specific group of pre-Hellenic people in Laconia, later home of the mighty Spartans.

King list Mycenaeans
(c.1900 BC)

South-West Indo-Europeans, these were part of a much greater expansion and migration of peoples from the northern shores of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.

 
Images and text copyright © all contributors mentioned on this page. An original king list page for the History Files.

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