Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:18:21.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An essay on the ‘emergence of civilization’ in the Aegean world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Tjeerd H. van Andel  and
Curtis N. Runnels
Tjeerd H. van Andel
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EQ
Curtis N. Runnels
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The fascicules of the final report on Franchthi Cave in the Argolid, the key Aegean sequence for the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition, are starting to appear, along with the publications of the Stanford survey of the region. Here, those reports prompt a wider review of existing explanations for the emergence of Greek social complexity, and the identifying of a new and major impetus as the basis for a revised model.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 235 , June 1988 , pp. 234 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ammerman, A.J. & Cavalli Sforza, L.L.. 1984. The Neolithic transition and the genetics of population in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, D. & Lees, S.. 1977. The role of exchange in productive specialization, American Anthropologist 79: 824–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bottema, S. 1974. Late Quaternary vegetation history of northwestern Greece. Groningen, VRB Offset Drukkerij.Google Scholar
Bottema, S. 1979. Pollenanalytical investigations in Thessaly, Palaeohistoria 21: 19–40.Google Scholar
Caskey, J. 1960. The Early Helladic period in the Argolid, Hesperia 29: 285–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherry, J.F. 1981. Pattern and process in the earliest colonisation of the Mediterranean islands, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47: 41–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherry, J.F. 1985. Islands out of the stream: isolation and interaction in early East Mediterranean insular prehistory, in Knapp, & Stech, 1985: 12–29.Google Scholar
Cherry, J.F., Davis, J.L. Demitrack, A. Mantzourani, E. Strasser, T.X. & Tallalay, L.. In press. Archaeological survey in an artifact-rich landscape: a Middle Neolithic example from Nemea, Greece, American Journal of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Cherry, J.F. & Torrence, R.. 1982. The earliest prehistory of Melos, in Renfrew, & Wagstaff, 1982: 24–34.Google Scholar
Childe, V.G. 1950. The urban revolution, Town Planning Review 21: 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, J. 1977. Kephala: a Late Neolithic settlement and cemetery: Keos I. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 1979. In good years and bad: food strategies of self-reliant societies, Journal of Anthropological Research 35: 18–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cullen, T. 1984. Social implications of ceramic style in the Neolithic Peloponnese, in Kingery, W.D. (ed.), Ancient technology and modern science: 77–100. Columbus (OH): American Ceramic Society.Google Scholar
Curtin, P.D. 1984. Cross cultural trade in world history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, G. 1977. Aboriginal economies in stateless societies, in Earle, T.K. & Ericson, J.E. (ed.), Exchange systems in prehistory: 191–212. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, R.W. 1978. Early farming in south Bulgaria from VIth to the IIIrd millennia BC. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, R.W. 1984. The expansion of exogenous-based economies across Europe: the Balkans and central Europe, in de Atley, S.P. & Findlow, F.J. (ed.), Exploring the limits: frontiers and boundaries in prehistory: 93–115. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 223.Google Scholar
Dennell, R.W. 1985. The hunter-gatherer/agricultural frontier in prehistoric temperate Europe, in Green, S.W. & Perlman, S.M. (ed.), The archaeology of frontiers and boundaries: 113–39. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1967. Primitive rationing, in Firth, R. (ed.), Themes in economic anthropology: 119–48. Washington (DC): American Society of Anthropology. Monograph 6.Google Scholar
Downs, J. 1972. The Navajo. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.Google Scholar
Evans, J.D. 1964. Excavations in the Neolithic settlement at Knossos, 1957–60, Annual of the British School in Athens 59: 132–240.Google Scholar
Evans, J.D. 1968. Knossos Neolithic, Part II: Summary and conclusions, Annual of the British School in Athens 63: 267–76.Google Scholar
Evans, J.D. & Renfrew, C.. 1968. Excavations at Saliagos near Antiparos. Annual of the British School in Athens. Supplementary volume 5.Google Scholar
Feuer, B. 1983. The northern Mycenaean border in Thessaly. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisk, E. & Shand, R.. 1969. The early stages of development in a primitive economy: the evolution from subsistence to trade and specialization, in Wharton, C. (ed.), Subsistence agriculture and economic development: 275–83. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Furlan, D. 1977. The climate of southeast Europe, in Wallen, C. (ed.), Climates of central and southern Europe: 185–235. Amsterdam: Elsevier. World Survey of Climates 6.Google Scholar
Gale, N. & Stos-Gale, Z.. 1982. Bronze Age copper in the Mediterranean: a new approach, Science 216: 11–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gamble, C.S. 1979. Surplus and self-sufficiency in Cycladic subsistence economy, in Davis, J.L. & Cherry, J.F. (ed.), Papers in Cycladic prehistory: 122–33. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Monograph 14.Google Scholar
Gamble, C.S. 1981. Social control and the economy, in Sheridan, & Bailey, 1981: 215–29.Google Scholar
Gamble, C.S. 1982. Animal husbandry, population and urbanisation, in Renfrew, & Wagstaff, 1982: 161–71.Google Scholar
Gifford, J.A. 1983. Core sampling of a Holocene marine sequence and underlying Neolithic cultural material off Franchthi Cave, in Masters, P.M. & Flemming, N.C. (ed.), Quaternary coastlines and marine archaeology: 269–81. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Greig, F.R.A. & Turner, J.. 1971. Some pollen diagrams from Greece and their archaeological significance, Journal of Archaeological Science 1: 177–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halstead, P.M. 1977. Prehistoric Thessaly: the submergence of civilisation, in Bintliff, J.L. (ed.), Mycenaean geography: 23–9. Cambridge: The University Library Press.Google Scholar
Halstead, P.M. 1981a. From determinism to uncertainty: social storage and the rise of the Minoan palace, in Sheridan, & Bailey, 1981: 187–213.Google Scholar
Halstead, P.M. 1981b. Counting sheep in Neolithic and Bronze Age Greece, in Hodder, Isaac & Hammond, 1981: 307–39.Google Scholar
Halstead, P.M. 1984. Strategies for survival: an ecological approach to social and economic change in the early farming communities of Thessaly, northern Greece. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Halstead, P.M. & O’Shfa, J.. 1982. A friend in need is a friend indeed: social storage and the origins of social ranking, in Renfrew, & Shennan, 1982: 92–9.Google Scholar
Hansen, J.M. 1980. The paleoethnobotany of Franchthi Cave, Greece. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington (IN).Google Scholar
Hansen, J.M. 1988. Agriculture in the prehistoric Aegean: data versus speculation, American Journal of Archaeology 92: 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, R.J. 1985. The ‘Policultivo ganadero’ or the secondary products revolution in Spanish agriculture: 5000–1000 BC, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 51: 75–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, D.O. 1985. Pre-agricultural sedentism: the Natufian example, in Price, T.D. & Brown, J.A. (ed.), Prehistoric hunter-gatherers: the emergence of cultural complexity: 365–84. Orlando (FL): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982. The identification and interpretation of ranking in prehistory: a contextual perspective, in Renfrew, & Shennan, 1982: 150–41.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., Isaac, G. & Hammond, N., (ed.). 1981. Pattern of the past: studies in honour of David L. Clarke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hope Simpson, R. & Dickinson, O.T.P.K.. 1979. A gazetteer of Aegean civilisation in the Bronze Age 1: The mainland and the islands. Gothenburg: Paul Âstròms Forlag. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 5.Google Scholar
Hopf, M. 1969. Plant remains and early farming in Jericho, in Ucko, P.J. & Dimbleby, G. (ed.), The domestication and exploitation of plants and animals: 355–60. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Howell, R. 1970. A survey of east Arkadia in prehistory, Annual of the British School in Athens 69: 79–127.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1969. Excavations at Porto Cheli and vicinity, preliminary report II: The Franchthi Cave, 1967–68, Hesperia 38: 343–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1973. Excavations in the Franchthi cave, 1969–1971, Hesperia 42: 45–88, 253–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1976. 17,000 years of Greek prehistory, Scientific American 234: 76–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1979. Excavations at Franchthi cave, 1973–1979, Archaiologikou Deltiou Chronika 50: 268–82.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1981. Franchthi cave and the beginning of settled village life in Greece, Hesperia 30: 303–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. 1984. Seasonal pastoralism in the Neolithic of southern Greece, in Price, P.M. (ed.), Pots and potters: current approaches in ceramic archaeology: 27–43. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Monograph 24Google Scholar
Jacobsen, T.W. Forthcoming (ed.). Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N., & Van Andel, TJ.H.. In press. A Greek countryside: the southern Argolid from prehistory to present day. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jarman, M.R., Bailey, G.N. & Jarman, H.N.. 1982. Early European agriculture: its foundation and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jarman, M.R. & Jarman, H.N.. 1968. The fauna and economy of Early Neolithic Knossos, Annual of the British School in Athens 63: 741–64.Google Scholar
Johnston, P.F. 1985. Ship and boat models in ancient Greece. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.Google Scholar
Johnstone, P. 1980. The seacraft of prehistory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Jones, G., Wardle, K. Halstead, P. & Wardle, D.. 1986. Crop storage at Assiros, Scientific American 254: 96–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilian, K. 1984. Die Verwaltungspolitische Organisation in Messenien und in der Argolis während der mykenischen Epoche (in Greek), Praktika 2, Topikou Sunedriou Messeniakon Spoudon, Kyparissia 27–29 November 1982: 55–60.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. & Stech, T. (ed.). 1985. Prehistoric production and exchange: the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Monograph 25.Google Scholar
Konsola, D. 1984. I Proimi Astikopoiisi stous Protoell-adhikous Oikismous. Athens.Google Scholar
Leekley, D. & Noyes, R.. 1975. Archaeological excavations in the Greek islands. Park Ridge (NJ): Noyes Press.Google Scholar
Lewthwaite, J. 1981. Plains tails from the hills: transhumance in Mediterranean archaeology, in Sheridan, & Bailey, 1981: 57–66.Google Scholar
Maccormack, C.P. 1981. Exchange and hierarchy, in Sheridan, & Bailey, 1981: 159–66.Google Scholar
McDonald, W.A. & Rapp, G.R. Jr (ed.). 1972. The Minnesota Messenia expedition: reconstructing a Bronze Age regional environment 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mcgeehan-Liritzis, V. 1983. The relationship between metalwork, copper sources and the evidence for settlement in the Greek Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2: 147–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, A.M.T. 1982. Agricultural origins in the Near East: a model for the 1980s, World Archaeology 14: 224–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, R. 1987. Classical landscape with figures. London: George Philip.Google Scholar
O’Shea, J. 1981. Coping with scarcity: exchange and social storage, in Sheridan, & Bailey, 1981: 167–83.Google Scholar
Payne, S. 1975. Faunal change at Franchthi from 20,000 HC to 3,000 BC, in Clason, A.T. (ed.), Archaeozoological studies: 120–31. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pearson, H. 1957. The economy has no surplus: critique of a theory of development, in Polanyi, K. Arensberg, C.M. & Pearson, H. (ed.), Trade and market in the early empires: 320–41. Glencoe (IL): Free Press.Google Scholar
Perles, C. 1979. Des navigateurs méditerranéens il y a 10,000 ans, La Recherche 96: 82–3.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. & Brown, J.A. (ed.) 1985. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers: the emergence of cultural complexity. Orlando (FL): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pryor, F.L. 1977. The origins of the economy. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1972. The emergence of civilisation: the Cyciades and the Aegean in the third millennium BC. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1982. Polity and power: interaction, intensification and exploitation, in Renfrew, & Wagstaff, 1982: 262–90.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1984. Approaches to social archaeology. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. & Shennan, S. (ed.). 1982. Ranking, resource, and exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. & Wagstaff, J.M. (ed.). 1982. An island polity: the archaeology of exploitation on Melos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Runnels, C.N. 1983. Trade and communication in prehistory, Ekistics 50: 417–20.Google Scholar
Runnels, C.N. 1985. Trade and the demand for millstones in southern Greece in the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age, in Knapp, & Stech, 1985: 30–43.Google Scholar
Runnels, C.N. & Hansen, J.. 1987. The olive in the prehistoric Aegean: the evidence for domestication in the Early Bronze Age, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 5: 299–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runnels, C.N. & Van Andel, TJ.H.. 1987. The evolution of settlement in the southern Argolid, Greece: an economic explanation, Hesperia 56: 303–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runnels, C.N. & Van Andel, TJ.H.. 1988. Trade and the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rupp, D. & Keller, D. (ed.). 1983. Archaeological surveys in the Mediterranean. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 155.Google Scholar
Schachermeyr, F. 1976. Die Aegäisehe Frühzeit 1: Die Vormykenische Perioden. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Schneider, H.K. 1974. Economic man: the anthropology of economics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, H.K. 1979. Livestock and equality in East Africa: the economic basis for social structure. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Shackleton, J.C. Forthcoming. Prehistoric marine shell assemblages of Franchthi Cave, Greece, in Jacobsen, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Sheehan, M.C. 1979. The postglacial vegetation history of the Argolid peninsula. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington (IN).Google Scholar
Sheridan, A. & Bailey, G.F. (ed.). 1981. Economic archaeology. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 96.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1975. The beginning of the Bronze Age in the area between the Middle Danube and the north Aegean. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1980. Resources, technology and trade: an essay in early European metallurgy, in de, G. Sieveking, G. Longworth, I.H. & Wilson, K.A. (ed.), Problems in social and economic archaeology: 558–81. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1981. Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution, in Hodder, Isaac & Hammond, 1981: 261–305.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1982. Mobile resources, settlement and exchange in early Europe, in Renfrew, & Shennan, 1982: 13–26.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1983. The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World, World Archaeology 15: 287–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Theocharis, D. 1973. Neolithic Greece. Athens: National Bank of Greece.Google Scholar
Tollner, H. 1976. Zum Klima von Griechenland, Beiträge zur Landeskunde Griechenlands 6: 267–81.Google Scholar
Torrence, R. 1982. The obsidian quarries and their use, in Renfrew, & Wagstaff, 1982: 193–221.Google Scholar
Torrence, R. 1986. Production and exchange of stone tools. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, J. & Greic, J.R.A.. 1975. Some Holocene pollen diagrams from Greece, Review of Palueoboiany and Palynology 20: 171–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Andkl, TJ.H. & Líanos, N.. 1983. Prehistoric and historic shorelines of the southern Argolid peninsula, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 12: 303–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Andkl, TJ.H. & Líanos, N.. 1984. High resolution seismic reflection profiles for the reconstruction of postglacial shorelines: an example from Greece, Quaternary Research 22: 31–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Andel, TJ.H. & Runnels, C.N.. 1987. Beyond the Acropolis: a rural Greek past. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Van Andel, TJ.H., Runnels, C.N. & Pope, K.O.. 1986. Five thousand years of land use and abuse in the southern Argolid, Greece, Hesperia 55: 103–28.Google Scholar
Van Andel, TJ.H. & Sutton, S.B.. 1987. Landscape and people of the Franchthi region. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press. [T.W. Jacobsen (ed.), Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece fascicule 3.]Google Scholar
Wijmstra, T.A. 1969. Palynology of the first 30 metres of a 120 m deep section in northern Greece, Acta Botanica Neerlandica 18: 511–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wricht, H.E. 1972. Vegetational history, in McDonald, & Rapp, 1972: 188–99.Google Scholar
Zohary, D. & Hopf, M.. 1988. Domestication of plants in the Old World. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar