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$a THE FIRST EUROPEANS : THE EARLY PEOPLES OF EUROPE AND THE RISE OF GREECE AND ROME The first European civilizations developed during the Bronze and Iron Ages, from about 3000 to 500 BC. This period saw the great `classical` civilization of ancient Greece, and the rise of the Romans. These two civilizations had close links with other peoples, such as the Etruscans, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, who flourished around the shores of the warm Mediterranean Sea. Further away from the sunny Mediterranean were Celts, Britons, Iberians and Scythians, and beyond their lands lived other peoples in the remote and cold northlands of Europe. People often claim that the idea of `Europe` as a distinct region with a common culture is a modern one. But it is clear that in the ancient world, people thought of Europe as a region, one of the three parts of the known world - the other two being Africa and Asia. The peoples living around the Mediterranean traded with each other, and with the civilizations of the Middle East, from which they took many ideas and customs. Some peoples had direct contact with one another through trade. Others dealt through a middle group , such as the Etruscans who bought goods from the Greeks and sold them on to other people in central Europe. The cold north and northwest of the continent were not easy for southerners to reach, since the mountains and plains of central Europe were barriers to land travel, and the ships of the ancient world were not big or strong enough to sail regularly beyond the Mediterranean into the stormy Atlantic Ocean. Contacts between the Mediterranean peoples and those of northern Europe were therefore few. What we know about these times comes from the writings of Greeks and Romans, from modern archaeological finds such as tombs, and from the study of ancient languages and religions. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of Europe as the cradle of freedom and the foe of Asian (meaning Persian) tyranny. This idea has influenced many people but the truth was more complicated. The classical civilizations provide us with much written evidence about ancient Europe, its literature, laws and other records. The `fringe` civilizations left less evidence, but have their own stories and their own place in Europe`s cultural and economic development. A true picture of Europe as it was in ancient times can help us to understand the Europe of later centuries, and even the Europe of today. In The First Europeans we see a Europe in which ancient peoples at different levels of culture mingled. The immeasurable contributions of the Greeks and the Eastern civilizations to Europe`s development is clearly shown, but so also are the contributions of others, such as the Phoenicians, Romans and Celts. In the period covered by this volume of THE ATLAS OF HUMAN HISTORY there was no central unifying force in Europe, like that later provided by the Roman Catholic Church. Different strands of development, from across the continent, were woven together to create the civilization we now call European. The maps and pictorial reconstructions illustrate this process, which is still going on today.(libra)
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