Greece history Stone age and early

The Archaic period (800-500)
Corinth became the most advanced city in Hellas around 730 BC, but other cities also became important. Soon the cities became so big that they could no longer support all their inhabitants. Sparta tried to solve the problem by conquering most of the Peloponesse during the second Messenian war, but most cities found daughtercities througout the Mediterranean. The big colonization had begun.

General aspects:

• The emergence of the Polis
• The colonization (750-550)
• Tyranny
• Sparta

Athens Classical period:
fifth century (500-404)In the year 546 the Mede came: the conquest of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor by the Persians proved to be a turning-point, and the conflict with the mighty Persian empire dominates the next fifty years. The final victory for the Greeks was an impuls for the Greek culture, and it flourished as never before. Athens founded its Attic League and evolved the most extreme form of democracy the world has ever known. However, conflicts between Sparta and Athens in their struggle for hegemony form

The stone age.

Unfortunately not much is known about this era. What we know is that large areas of Hellas were already habitated in the paleo- and mesolithicum. The neolithic way of living was most likely introduced by migration from Asia Minor. Wellknown neolithic find-spots are for example Sesklo and Dimini in Thesally, Lerna in Argolis and of course Cnossus at Crete. The oldest of these settlements already existed in 6000 BC. The stoneage was followed by a period were copper became more and more used besides the traditional stone. We know this period as the copper-stone age, or chalcolithicum that comes from the Greek word for copper: chalkos. This phase in history was followed by the actual bronze age. Bronze is an alloy of 90% copper, and 10% tin. It is better for the construction of tools and weaponry as it was harder than copper. Copper was imported from Asia Minor and Cyprus, but the origins of the tin are unknown.