Why the greeks rocked:

New ideas

Incredible art forms

Democratic ogvernment with citizen participation

Innovators in warefare

4000 B.C.- farming and village life spreads from Sumerian and Egyptian lands across SW Asia and NE Africa and the european continent

3500 B.C.- same are organized enough to construct negaliths, massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs, such as Stonehedge (finished in England in 2000 B.C.), consisting of 160 massive boulders weighing up to 50 tons ( 100,000 pounds) each, stacked and circled and aligned to the movements of sun and moon

from 2500 B.C. on- Indo- Euyropean nomads migrated from the steeps in eastern Europe

Thier language would evolve into Greek and Latin

Their lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battle

Thinner populations then Egypt and Mesopotamia- they found tribes, social and political unit consisting of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship

Tribes were headed by powerful herediatry chieftains, thought of as kings

This is how Europe came to be populated by speakers of INdo-European languages who were skilled in farming, metalworking, trade, and warfare

No cities, no written records, no fixed structures if government

They were barbarians ( means non greek)

They adopted the way of life of those they encountered, and as they traveled (from 2000 B.C. to AD 1000), this is how civilization eventually spread throughout Europe

The distincitive civilization the Greeks developed is the first that counts as definitely "Western"