Editing History of Europe (section)

===Bronze Age===
{{Main article|Bronze Age Europe|Aegean civilization}}
[[File:Knossos - North Portico 02.jpg|thumb|Partly reconstructed ruins of [[Knossos]], Crete, c. 1700 BC]]

The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was the [[Minoan civilization]] that arose on the island of [[Crete]] and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/display/id/obo-9780195389661-0071|title=Ancient Crete|publisher=Oxfordbibliographiesonline.com|date=15 February 2010|access-date=17 May 2012|archive-date=30 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200530225110/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195389661/obo-9780195389661-0071.xml|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Minoans were replaced by the [[Mycenaean civilization]] which flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, when [[Helladic]] culture in [[Geography of Greece|mainland Greece]] was transformed under influences from Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC. The major Mycenaean cities were [[Mycenae]] and [[Tiryns]] in Argolis, [[Pylos]] in Messenia, [[Athens]] in Attica, [[Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)|Thebes]] and [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]] in Boeotia, and [[Iolkos]] in Thessaly. In [[Crete]], the Mycenaeans occupied [[Knossos]]. Mycenaean settlement sites also appeared in [[Epirus]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Hammond|first=N.G.L.|title=Migrations and invasions in Greece and adjacent areas|year=1976|publisher=Noyes P.|location=Park Ridge, NJ|isbn=978-0-8155-5047-1|page=139|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O9saAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Moreover%2C+in+this+area+a+small+tholos-tomb+with+Mycenaean+pottery+of+III+B+style+and+a+Mycenaean+acropolis+have+been+reported+at+Kiperi+near+Parga%2C+and+another+Mycenaean+acropolis+lay+above+the+Oracle+of+the+Dead+on+the+hill+called+%22|access-date=6 November 2020|archive-date=27 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230427155343/https://books.google.com/books?id=O9saAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Moreover%2C+in+this+area+a+small+tholos-tomb+with+Mycenaean+pottery+of+III+B+style+and+a+Mycenaean+acropolis+have+been+reported+at+Kiperi+near+Parga%2C+and+another+Mycenaean+acropolis+lay+above+the+Oracle+of+the+Dead+on+the+hill+called+%22|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Tandy, p. xii. "Figure 1: Map of Epirus showing the locations of known sites with Mycenaean remains"; Tandy, p. 2. "The strongest evidence for Mycenaean presence in Epirus is found in the coastal zone of the lower Acheron River, which in antiquity emptied into a bay on the Ionian coast known from ancient sources as ''Glykys Limin'' (Figure 2-A)."</ref> [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Borza|first=Eugene N.|title=In the shadow of Olympus : the emergence of Macedon|year=1990|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ|isbn=978-0-691-00880-6|page=64|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&q=%22The+existence+of+a+Late+Bronze+Age+Mycenaean+settlement+in+the+Petra+not+only+confirms+its+importance+as+a+route+from+an+early+period%2C+but+also+extends+the+limits+of+Mycenaean+settlement+to+the+Macedonian+frontier.%22&pg=PA64|edition=[Nachdr.]|access-date=6 November 2020|archive-date=27 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230427155354/https://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&q=%22The+existence+of+a+Late+Bronze+Age+Mycenaean+settlement+in+the+Petra+not+only+confirms+its+importance+as+a+route+from+an+early+period%2C+but+also+extends+the+limits+of+Mycenaean+settlement+to+the+Macedonian+frontier.%22&pg=PA64|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://aegeobalkanprehistory.net/img_articles/thumbs/tmb_75.jpg|title=Aegeobalkan Prehistory – Mycenaean Sites|access-date=17 May 2012|archive-date=3 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150903230427/http://aegeobalkanprehistory.net/img_articles/thumbs/tmb_75.jpg|url-status=live}}</ref> on islands in the [[Aegean Sea]], on the coast of [[Asia Minor]], the [[Levant]],<ref>The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC III, Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 – 2nd EuroConference, Vienna, 28 May – 1 June 2003</ref> [[Cyprus]]<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=q4eYEG2FW28C&q=mycenaean+in+italy Use and appreciation of Mycenaean pottery in the Levant, Cyprus and Italy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230427155344/https://books.google.com/books?id=q4eYEG2FW28C&q=mycenaean+in+italy |date=27 April 2023 }}, Gert Jan van Wijngaarden, Amsterdam Archaeological Studies</ref> and Italy.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090822030452/http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/projects/mycenaeansitaly/ The Mycenaeans and Italy: the archaeological and archaeometric ceramic evidence], University of Glasgow, Department of Archaeology</ref><ref>Emilio Peruzzi, ''Mycenaeans in early Latium'', (Incunabula Graeca 75), Edizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzarri, Roma, 1980</ref> Mycenaean artefacts have been found well outside the limits of the Mycenean world.

[[File:Tholos of Atreus.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Treasury of Atreus]], or Tomb of Agamemnon in [[Mycenae]], Greece 1250 BC]]

Quite unlike the Minoans, whose society benefited from trade, the Mycenaeans advanced through conquest. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior [[aristocracy]]. Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, the centre of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script (called [[Linear A]]) to write their early form of [[Greek language|Greek]] in [[Linear B]].

The Mycenaean civilization perished with the [[Bronze Age collapse|collapse of Bronze-Age civilization]] on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The collapse is commonly attributed to the [[Dorian invasion]], although other theories describing natural disasters and climate change have been advanced as well.{{Citation needed|date=August 2015}} Whatever the causes, the Mycenaean civilization had disappeared after [[LH IIIC|LH III C]], when the sites of Mycenae and Tiryns were again destroyed and lost their importance. This end, during the last years of the 12th century BC, occurred after a slow decline of the Mycenaean civilization, which lasted many years before dying out. The beginning of the 11th century BC opened a new context, that of the protogeometric, the beginning of the geometric period, the ''[[Greek Dark Ages]]'' of traditional historiography.

The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of technological history that saw the slow spread of [[ironworking]] technology from present-day [[Bulgaria]] and [[Romania]] in the 13th and the 12th centuries BC.<ref name="See A 1989">See A. Stoia and the other essays in M.L. Stig Sørensen and R. Thomas, eds., ''The Bronze Age: Iron Age Transition in Europe'' (Oxford) 1989, and [[Theodore Wertime|T.A. Wertime]] and J.D. Muhly, ''The Coming of the Age of Iron'' (New Haven) 1980.</ref>

The [[Tumulus culture]] and the following [[Urnfield culture]] of central Europe were part of the origin of the [[Culture of ancient Rome|Roman]] and [[Classical Greece|Greek]] cultures.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276372928|title=Barbarian Europe and Early Iron Age Greece}}</ref>

<gallery widths="160" heights="120">
IE_expansion.png|Indo-European migrations from c. 4000-1500 BC according to the [[Kurgan hypothesis]]
Europe late bronze age.png|Late Bronze Age Europe, c. 1300-900 BC
</gallery>