Unit 2

Question 1

Where is the Aegean Sea? What are the islands?

Answer 1

• Aegean Sea is embayment of the Mediterranean
• Crete & Cycladic Islands
• Mainland Greece

Question 2

How was Neolithic Greece? What was the big technological revolution?

Answer 2

• first agricultural society, small villages
• Childe saw shift to agriculture as major tech rev. that changed society

Question 3

What was the Francthi Cave?

Answer 3

• on Gulf of Argos Greek mainland
• American school excavation
• stone age habitation 20k-30k BCE
• microcosm of growth of human civ from Paleolithic to Bronze Age (treat dead, ceramic produced, oversea trade)

Question 4

What is the Three Age System? Absolute chronology?

Answer 4

• Stone (Paleo, Meso, Neo), Bronze, or Iron
• specific dates generated by scientific analyses or historical dates (ex: Egyptian King Lists)

Question 5

When was the Bronze Age? What did it entail?

Answer 5

• 3,000-1,100 BCE
• copper + tin smelting = bronze
• required international trade
• better tools, weapons = complex society & material culture
• **increase wealth gap

Question 6

What is archaeological culture?

Answer 6

• reoccurring assemblage of items that share style, decoration, etc.; a way to categorize
• often named for first place they were found
  (the type site)

Question 7

What were the Cycladic Cultures?

Answer 7

• small rocky islands
• independent communities with some shared material similarities
• active trade? obsidian used for tolls before bronze
• figurines marble, stylized, found in graves, domestic contexts, Folded Arm Figures, instrument players, originally painted
• looted contexts
• influenced modern art (picasso Woman with Folded Hands)

Question 8

What was the Minoan Civilization?

Answer 8

• first advanced in Greek world
• Crete, mountains few water sources, very fertile in plains
• ca. 3000 - ca. 1000

Question 9

Who was Sir Arthur Evans and What was his relation to Minoan Civ?

Answer 9

• English academic & archaeologist
• Palace of Knossos started in 1900
• discovered & named Minoan Civ (King Minos & Labyrinth)
• showed world prehistoric Aegean

Question 10

Early Minoan Crete Burials

Answer 10

• poorly known & preserved, mostly through burials
• communal, outside of settlement, above ground
• cave burials possibly poorest, house tombs possibly show domestic architecture, tholos tombs (tholoi)
• family units? veneration (long term activity) and earlier burials moved for new ones

Question 11

What is relative dating?

Answer 11

sequence that indicated how elements change over time, relative to themselves not calendar dates

• Often into Early, Middle, Late (not good for Bronze Age)

Question 12

Middle Minoan Crete

Answer 12

• better archaeological visibility
• architecture, trace religious & economic activity, burials, some writing, pottery (Kamaresware)
  first mass produced, white sometimes red & orange w dark background, labor intensive, wide trade, function & aesthetic

Question 13

Rise of the Palace?

Answer 13

• large, multifaceted architectural complexes from M Minoan
• each complex different but had central courtyard (gathering space), walkway to plaza, frescoed walls, unclear residency, possibly view peak
• **DEMONSTRATES VISIBLE ELITE CLASS