History of Greece

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History of Greece
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The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout the ages and as a result, the history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Generally, the history of Greece is divided into the following periods:

• Paleolithic Greece, starting c. 3.3 million years ago and ending in 20000 BC. Significant geomorphological and climatic changes occurred in the modern Greek area which were definitive for the development of fauna and flora and the survival of Homo sapiens in the region.
• Mesolithic Greece, starting in 13000 BC and ending around 7000 BC, was a period of long and slow development of primitive human "proto-communities".
• Neolithic Greece, beginning with the establishment of agricultural societies around 7000 BC and ending c. 3200 – c. 3100 BC, was a vital part of the early history of Greece because it was the base for early Bronze Age civilizations in the area. The first organized communities developed and basic art became more advanced in Neolithic Greece.
• Bronze Age Greece (c. 3200 – c. 1100 BC) began with the transition to a metal-based economy during the Early Helladic period of mainland Greece (c. 3200 – c. 2000 BC). Meanwhile, Cycladic culture prospered in the Cyclades (c. 3200 – c. 1050 BC) and Minoan civilization around Crete (c. 3500 – c. 1100 BC). The Bronze Age ended with the rise and fall of the Mycenaean Greek palace culture (c. 1750 – c. 1050 BC) in the Late Bronze Age collapse.
• Ancient Greece usually encompasses Greek antiquity, as well as part of the region's late prehistory (Late Bronze Age). It lasted from c. 1200 BC – c. 600 AD and can be subdivided into the following periods:
  • Greek Dark Ages (or Iron Age, Homeric Age), 1100–800 BC
  • Archaic period, 800–490 BC
  • Classical period, 490–323 BC
  • Hellenistic period, 323–146 BC
  • Roman Greece, covering the period of the Roman conquest of Greece from 146 BC – 324 AD
• Byzantine Greece covers the period of Greece under the Byzantine Empire, lasting from the establishment of Constantinople as the capital city of Byzantium in 324 AD until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
• Frankish/Latin Greece (including the Venetian possessions) lasted from the Fourth Crusade in 1204 AD to 1797, the year of the disestablishment of the Venetian Republic.
• Ottoman Greece covers the period of Ottoman occupation of Greece from 1453 until the Greek Revolution of 1821.
• Modern Greece covers the period from 1821 to present.

At its cultural and geographical peak, Greek civilization spread from Egypt all the way to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Since then, Greek minorities have continued to inhabit former Greek territories (e.g. Turkey, Albania, Italy, Libya, Levant, Armenia, Georgia), and Greek emigrants have assimilated into differing societies across the globe (e.g., North America, Australia, Northern Europe, South Africa). At present, most Greeks live in the modern states of Greece (independent since 1821) and Cyprus.