The primary influences on the extant periodization of Greek history are global climatic shifts and the various historical climate regimes they have produced. A wide array of methodologies ranging from philology to biology will be employed to substantiate this argument. Synthesizing their insights will convey how climatic fluctuations precipitated profound societal changes via their agricultural, demographic, economic, and political effects. To better frame its vast chronology, this piece approaches the extant periodization of ancient and prehistoric Greek geology, archaeology, and history by grouping them into five macroscopic periods. This will aptly convey the macroscopic influence of millennia-spanning climatic oscillations and their longstanding ramifications. The earliest two macroscopic periods cover topics generally foregone by historians: pre-anthropological Greece and the climatic conditions of the Pleistocene that hindered extensive human development. The second section explains the role of climate in introducing anthropogenic agriculture in the Aegean region. The final three periods cover groupings of periodizations canonical to Greek historiography, such as the Late Bronze Age or the Hellenistic era. Greece’s nominal landmass in relation to the earth raises the question of how this specific ecological domain and its inhabitants were so globally influential. This question is answered in no small part by historical climatology, which informs and influences virtually all characteristics of each period in the chronology of its ancient and prehistoric past.
Kevin Black (Tue,) studied this question.