Notes from Monday ( I was absent)

pages 44-49

The greeks

The greeks began as one of many European barbarian peoples-- that is, they had a distinctive way of life, based on farming and warfare, that was widespread in western Europe. About 2000 B.C., they began to migrate into Europe's southeastern region, within easy reach of the people of Asia minor, Mesopotamia and egypt. As a result, the greeks began to share in and adapt the more advanced ways of life of the peoples they encountered- something that would happen to European barbarian peoples over and over again in the next 3,000 years.

The earliest Greek civilization was very much an offshoot of the ways of life of their eastern neighbors. It shared in the crisis and recovery of the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and finally emerged as "classical" Greek civilzation about 800 B.C.

Greek civilization, there appeared ideas, art forms, and types of government whose influence on Western civilization has lasted down to the present day. In particular, Greek city-states were the first to practice citizen participation in government-- on a estricted basis in oligarchies.

barbarian- a term used to describe the distinctive way of life based on farming, warfare, and tribal organization that became widespread in Europe beginning around 2500 B.C.

Megaliths- massive rough cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs

Tribe- A social and politial unit consisitng of a group of communites held together by common interest, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship

Many Megaliths are still around today

Perhaps the most impressive single early European achievement was stonehenge, a huge open-air monument built by a prosperous farming and trading poeple in the west of England, probably as a religious center