Aegean civilization
ancient Greek civilization
Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization from the Early Bronze Age. The Cycladic civilization converges with the mainland during the Early Helladic ("Minyan") period and with Crete in the Middle Minoan period. From c. 1450 BC (Late Helladic, Late Minoan), the Greek Mycenaean civilization spreads to Crete, probably by military conquest. The earlier Aegean farming populations of Neolithic Greece brought agriculture westward into Europe before 5000 BC.
Early European Farmers ("EEFs")
Around 5,000 BC, peoples descending from neolithic migrant populations reached the northern European plain in modern-day France and Germany; they reached Britain some 1000 years later.
Once in the Balkans, the Aegean EEFs appear to have divided into two wings: one which expanded further north into Europe along the Danube (Linear Pottery culture), and another which headed west along the Mediterranean (Cardial Ware) into the Iberian Peninsula. Descendants of this latter group eventually migrated into Britain. Previously, these areas were populated by Western Hunter-Gatherer represented by the Cheddar Man.
The Chalcolithic (Copper Age) began in Europe around 5500 BC. Chalcolithic Europeans began to erect megaliths in this period.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aegean civilization” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.