EARLY CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT GREECE:

Geography In Ancient Greece:

Mountains

• About 80% of Greece is mountainous.
• Some of these mountains isolated Greeks from one another, causing different Greek communities to develop their own ways of life.
• Over a period of time these communities became independent, and this lead to a rivalry between the communities. Which led to warfare.

SEAS:

• Although Greece is small, it has an 8,500-mile, coastline.
• They established several colonies that spread Greek civilization throughout the Mediterranean world.

MINOANS AND MYCENAEANS

Minoan Civilization

• The Minoans were not Greek, but they influenced the people of the Greek mainlands.
• Evans, is the English archaeologists who discovered civilization.
• They traded gold, silver, jewelry, and other goods that they produced.

Mycenae: The First Greek State:

• A fortified site on the Greek mainland, that was the driest, discovered by the German archaeologists; Heinrich Schliemann.
• Archeological evidence also indicates that the Mycenaean monarchies developed an extensive commercial network.

Greeks In The Dark Age:

Changes in the Dark Age:

• After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered a difficult period in which population declined, and food production dropped.
• During the Dark Age, many Greeks left the Mainland and sailed across the Aegean sea, to various different islands.
• In addition to agriculture, there was some trade and economic activity during the dark age.

Homer: Poet of the Dark Age

• The work of Homer, one of the great poets of all time, appeared near the end of the Dark Age.
• The value Homer taught was courage and honor.
• Not only did Homer record history, he created it.

EXTRA INFORMATION:

Early Civilization:

• Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity.
• The earliest civilization in Europe appeared on the coasts and islands of the Aegean Sea. This body of water is a branch of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded by the Greek mainland on the west, Asia Minor on the east, and the island of Crete on the south. Here, while the rest of Europe was still in the Stone Age, the Minoan-Mycenaean peoples achieved a highly organized Bronze Age culture.

...

• Greece, and especially Athens, is the cradle of democracy in the western civilization. Athens owes the first penal and civil law code to Draco
• The story of Ancient Greek civilization begins when a group of Greek speaking Indo-European people moved into Greece around 1900 B.C. O

Work Cited:
Leslie: http://www.timemaps.com/civilization-ancient-greeks
Leslie, Haylee, Tori, Lainnie: World History Book