Ancient Greece’s Cultural Rise Started a Century Earlier Than Previously Thought—New Research

Trevor Van Damme/The Conversation

While ancient Greece is one of the best known cultures of antiquity, there are no surviving historical narratives covering events between 1200 and 760BC. This period has traditionally been viewed as a “Dark Age” on account of the lack of preserved written sources after much of the Mediterranean suffered a societal and political collapse.

The Greek Iron Age occurred within this period. But, because of the lack of documents, up to now historians have been working with a timeline, which uses pottery styles from Athens as its basis. Devised in the late 50s and 60s by the historians Nicolas Coldsteam and Vincent Desborough, it has supported the conclusion that the Iron Ages began in 1025 and ended in 700BC.

The “Greek Renaissance”, from 760BC to 700 BC, emerged in the Iron Age’s last period, known as the Late Geometric. This was a time of rapid economic and demographic growth that saw the adoption of alphabetic writing, the emergence of the Greek city-states, Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries and the establishment of Greek colonies abroad.