Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
• Intro
– 1. Roster
– 2. Introduction
– 3. Syllabus (online/onscreen)
– 4. Schedule (online/onscreen)
– 5. questions; break?
– 6. Greece introduction
– 7. Geography
– 8. Slides: Franchthi etc.
Beginnings
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History of civilization: how to date?
Definition of “text”
Hunter/gatherer vs. producer/settler
Definition of “culture”
Definition of “civilization”
Beginnings
• Various ages: paleolithic, neolithic, bronze,
iron
• The marks of civilization: cities, metals, and
WRITING
Ancient Greece
• Evidence for the study of history
– Material evidence
– Written evidence
Ancient Greece
• Evidence for the study of history
– Material evidence
• Metal artifacts
• Terra cotta artifacts
– Written evidence
Ancient Greece
• Evidence for the study of history
– Material evidence
• Metal artifacts
• Terra cotta artifacts
– Written evidence
• Media: clay, stone, metal, papyrus, parchment
• Language
Ancient Greece
• Evidence for the study of history
– Material evidence
• Metal artifacts
• Terra cotta artifacts
– Written evidence
• Media: clay, stone, metal, papyrus, parchment
• Language
– A FRACTION of what once was
Ancient Greece
• Evidence for the study of history
– Material evidence
• Metal artifacts
• Terra cotta artifacts
– Written evidence
• Media: clay, stone, metal, papyrus, parchment
• Language
– A FRACTION of what once was
– Implications?
Ancient Greece
• Sources for the study of Ancient Greece
– 3000bc-700bc
• Some Linear B tablets (Late Bronze Age)
• Dark Age silence
• Oral tradition (cyclic epic) = Homeric literature
– 700bc-480bc
• Homer & Hesiod
• Archaic poets
• Later writers looking backwards (e.g. classical
historiographers, and Xenophon and Plutarch on Sparta)
Ancient Greece
• Sources for the study of Ancient Greece
– 480bc-323bc
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Historiographers
Drama
Philosophy
Oratory
– 323bc-31bc
• Limited historiography
• Public record
• Literary scholars and academic interest
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
– Hellas
– Crete
– Anatolia
– The Aegean
– The size of
Alabama
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
– Mountains vs.
arable land
– Travel &
trade
– Climate, soil,
& rainfall
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
– Mostly
farmers, some
herders
– Decent living
– The pantheon
reflects reality
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
– Diet staples
– Animal
domestication
– Always a land
of small-scale
farmers
Ancient Greece
• Greece:
the Land.
– Devotion to
one’s own agr.
plain
– “Ancestral
Earth”
Ancient Greece
• Greece: the Land.
“The primary disunifying force
throughout Greek history was the
perpetual tension between those
citizens who had much land and those
who had little or none.”
(Pomeroy, et al., A brief history of Ancient Greece (2009), 13)
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
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General Dating:
Now we can start talking about HISTORY
Neolithic Period:
Early Neolithic: ca. 6,000 – ca. 5,000 b.c.
Middle Neolithic:
ca. 5,000 – ca. 4,500 b.c.
Late Neolithic: ca. 4,500 – ca. 4,000 b.c.
Final Neolithic: ca. 4,000 – ca. 3,000 b.c.
Bronze Age:
ca. 3,000 – ca. 1,150 b.c.
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
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Earliest Evidence of human habitation in Greece:
-Petralona Cave
-Middle Paleolithic finds in Thessaly
hunter-gatherers typical of the Paleolithic period
Franchthi Cave
-located in the NE Peloponnese near the Argolid Gulf
-finds date ca. 20,000 – 3,000 b.c.
-provides critical evidence for transition from hunting
and gathering to settled farming (the “Neolithic
Revolution”).
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Franchthi
Ancient Greece
Sesklo
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Features of Neolithic Period in Greece:
-Appearance of settled communities
-Domestication of animals and crops
-Permanent buildings
-Presence of obsidian at Neolithic site at Knossos and at sites in Thessaly and
elsewhere indicate a “network of sea-borne contacts.” (O. Dickinson, The Aegean
Bronze Age.)
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Features of Neolithic sites
-most sites were in open positions
-only identifiable permanent site is the farming village
-permanence indicated by building materials and plan of buildings
Ancient Greece
Sesklo
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III.
The Farming Economy
-Wheat, barley, lentils, peas and vetch were grown.
-Livestock included sheep and goats, sometimes cattle and pigs.
IV.
Neolithic Sites in Thessaly in Northern Greece
-Most intensive development of transition to a more settled way of
life occurred in Thessaly and western Macedonia.
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-‘Type’ Sites of Sesklo and Dimini are most important examples
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-‘type site’ – a typical representative of a group of culturally
similar sites
Ancient Greece
Sesklo
Ancient Greece
Sesklo