The Complete Archaeology of Greece: From Hunter–Gatherers to the 20th Century A.D.

The Complete Archaeology of Greece provides, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the story of Greece from the first hunter–gatherers up to the Modern era.  In 22 chapters and an introduction, John Bintliff surveys all phases of Greek culture, including the traditional foci of the Classical Greek and the Bronze Ages, but also detailing its beginnings in the Greek Palaeolithic (ca. 400,000 B.P.) up to the early modern period (1950 A.D.). Each chronological period is fully explained with the latest discoveries and theories, and richly illustrated. The author focuses on developments during each succeeding period of growth and change in Greek society, the evolution of their material culture, settlement patterns in the rural as well as urban landscapes, and the significance of their symbolic or representational culture—the ways in which architecture, art, and even everyday objects can reveal the social order and lifeways of the ancient Greeks. John Bintliff features well–known works of Greek art, architecture, and ancient texts, but also integrates the newest archaeological discoveries, surveys and excavations for a more comprehensive picture of the Greek past.

List of Figures and Tables ix List of Color Plates xxii Acknowledgments xxv Introduction 1 Part I The Landscape and Aegean Prehistory 9 1 The Dynamic Land 11 2 Hunter–Gatherers: The Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic in Greece 28 3 Early Farming Communities: Neolithic Greece 46 4 Complex Cultures of the Early Bronze Age 83 5 The Middle to Early Late Bronze Age on Crete: The Minoan Civilization 123 6 The Middle to Early Late Bronze Age on the Cyclades and the Mainland 155 7 The Mature Late Bronze Age on the Mainland and in the Wider Aegean: The Mycenaean Civilization 181 Part II The Archaeology of Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman Greece in its Longer–term Context 207 8 The Greek Early Iron Age and the Concept of a "Dark Age" 209 9 The Archaeology of the Archaic Era: Demography, Settlement Patterns, and Everyday Life 234 10 The Built Environment, Symbolic Material Culture, and Society in Archaic Greece 252 11 The Archaeology of Classical Greece: Demography, Settlement Patterns, and Everyday Life 265 12 Symbolic Material Culture, the Built Environment, and Society in Classical Greece 285 13 The Archaeology of Greece in Hellenistic to Early Roman Imperial Times: Demography, Settlement Patterns, and Everyday Life 310 14 Symbolic Material Culture, the Built Environment, and Society in Hellenistic and Early Roman Greece 337 15 The Archaeology of Greece from Middle Roman Imperial Times to Late Antiquity: Demography, Settlement Patterns, and Everyday Life 351 16 Symbolic Material Culture, the Built Environment, and Society in Middle to Late Roman Greece 369 Part III The Archaeology of Medieval and post–Medieval Greece in its Historical Context 379 17 The Archaeology of Byzantine Greece: Demography, Settlement Patterns, and Everyday Life 381 18 Symbolic Material Culture, the Built Environment, and Society in the Byzantine Aegean 402 19 The Archaeology of Frankish–Crusader Society in Greece 416 20 The Archaeology of Ottoman and Venetian Greece: Population, Settlement Dynamics, and Socio–economic Developments 436 21 Material Culture, the Built Environment, and Society in Ottoman and Venetian Greece 459 22 The Archaeology of Early Modern Greece 478 Index 498

John Bintliff studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge where he received his PhD in the landscape archaeology of prehistoric Greece. He has taught at Bradford and Durham Universities and is currently at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and has been co–director of the Boeotia Project in Central Greece since 1978. His interests include the long–term archaeology of Greece and the Mediterranean, landscape archaeology and regional field survey, and archaeological theory. He has published 18 books, including Mycenaean Geography (1977), Palaeoclimates, Palaeoenvironments (1982), European Social Evolution (1984), The Annales School and Archaeology (1991), Europe Between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (1995), Structure and Contingency (1999), The Future of Archaeological Field Survey in Europe (2000), A Companion to Archaeology (2004), Testing the Hinterland (2007), Medieval and Post–Medieval Greece (2009).

“In sum, it is clear that with the extensive range of evidence carefully collected and well–analyzed in this volume, it will, as its author hopes, “contribute to a wider awareness of the rich history of this beautiful country in every century of its remarkable past.”  ( Bryn Mawr Classical Review , 1 November 2013) “For others, however, The complete archaeology of Greeceis a valuable source of information, drawing a broad canvas, and, most significantly, exposing important questions concerning each period. . . Bintliff’s book is a generous reciprocation of Greek Philoxenia, a distillation of his long experience of Greek archaeology in the field, this theoretical positions and methodological tools, reaching out further than to the people of Greece alone."  ( Antiquity , 1 January 2013)  ‘Named CHOICE Outstanding Title for 2012 “Summing Up: Recommended.  All readers.”  ( Choice , 1 November 2012) “Bintliff’s newest contribution provides an ambitious panorama of Greek archaeology . . . Bintliff’s book does more than any other major survey of Greek history or archaeology to bring the rural economy into the larger narrative of later Greek history.”  ( The New Archaeology of the Mediterranean World , 1 September 2012) “By doing that he has delivered a brilliant survey of Greek archaeology and a remarkably succinct and comprehensive volume – a must read for anyone interested in the archaeology of Greece.”  ( The Anglo–Hellenic Review , 1 October 2012) “It doesn’t get much more comprehensive than this.”  ( Corinthianmatters.com , 2 May 2012)