The history of the Mediterranean region and of the cultures and people of the Mediterranean Basin is important for understanding the origin and development of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Carthaginian, Mauretanian, Minoan, Greek, Persian, Illyrian, Thracian, Etruscan, Iberian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Arab, Berber, Ottoman, Christian, and Islamic cultures. The Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing three continents: Western Asia, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe.
Early history
Lézignan-la-Cèbe in France, Orce in Spain, Monte PoggioloNational Geographic Italia – Erano padani i primi abitanti d'Italia in Italy and Kozarnika in Bulgaria are amongst the oldest Paleolithic sites in Europe and are located around the Mediterranean Basin.
There is evidence of stone tools on Crete in 130,000 years BC, which indicates that early humans were capable of using boats to reach the island.
The cultural stage of civilization (organised society structured around urban centers) first arises in Southwest Asia, as an extension of the Neolithic trend, from as early as the 8th millennium BC, of proto-urban centers such as Çatalhöyük. Urban civilizations proper begin to emerge in the Chalcolithic, in 5th-to-4th-millennium Egypt and in Mesopotamia.
The Black Sea area is a cradle of the European civilization. The site of Solnitsata (5500 BC - 4200 BC) is believed to be the oldest town in Europe - prehistoric fortified (walled) stone settlement (prehistoric city).Survival of Information: the earliest prehistoric town in Europe The first gold artifacts in the world appear from the 5th millennium BC, such as those found in a burial site from 4569 to 4340 BC and one of the most important archaeological sites in world prehistory – the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna in Bulgaria, thought to be the earliest "well-dated" find of gold artifacts.
As of 1990, gold artifacts found at the Wadi Qana cave cemetery of the 4th millennium BC in the West Bank were the earliest from the Levant.
The Bronze Age arises in this region during the final centuries of the 4th millennium BC. The urban civilizations of the Fertile Crescent now have writing systems and develop bureaucracy, by the mid-3rd millennium leading to the development of the earliest empires. In the 2nd millennium, the eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean are dominated by the Hittite and Egyptian empires, competing for control over the city states in the Levant (Canaan). The Minoans are trading throughout much of the Mediterranean.
The Bronze Age collapse is the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, expressed by the collapse of palace economies of the Aegean and Anatolia, which were replaced after a hiatus by the isolated village cultures of the ancient Near East. Some have gone so far as to call the catalyst that ended the Bronze Age a "catastrophe". The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of a technological history that saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region, beginning with precocious iron-working in what is now Romania in the 13th and 12th centuries.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 T.A. Wertime and J.D. Muhly, The Coming of the Age of Iron (New Haven) 1980. The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Israel, the scission of long-distance trade contacts and sudden eclipse of literacy occurred between 1206 and 1150 BC. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter (for example, Hattusas, Mycenae, Ugarit). The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of settled Neo-Hittite Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
While the cultural advances during the Bronze Age had mostly been confined to the eastern parts of the Mediterranean, with the Iron Age, the entire coastal region surrounding the Mediterranean now becomes involved, significantly due to the Phoenician expansion from the Levant, beginning in ca. the 12th century. Fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power is usually placed ca. 1200–800 BC. Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Arwad, and Berytus, all appear in the Amarna tablets.
The Phoenicians and the Assyrians transported elements of the Late Bronze Age culture of the Near East to Iron Age Greece and Italy, but also further afield to the northern Maghreb and to Iberia, initiating the beginning of Mediterranean history now known as Classical Antiquity. They notably spread alphabetic writing, which would become the hallmark of the Mediterranean civilizations of the Iron Age, in contrast to the cuneiform writing of Assyria and the logographic system in the Far East (and later the abugida systems of India).
Classical antiquity
Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilizations in classical antiquity were the Greek city-states and the Phoenicians, whose cities were also city-states. The Greeks spread to the shores of the Black Sea, Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia"), Gaul, and Asia Minor. The Phoenicians spread through the western Mediterranean to the northern Maghreb (present-day Morocco and Algeria), and the Iberian Peninsula, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. From the 6th century BC to the 5th century BC, many of Mediterranean peoples were under Persian rule, making them dominate the Mediterranean during these years. Both the Phoenicians and some of the Greek city states in Asia Minor provided the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Persian dominance ended after the Greco-Persian War in the 5th century BC and Persia was crippled by Macedonia in the 4th century BC. The Odrysian Kingdom existed between the 5th century BC and the 1st century AD as the most important and powerful thracian state formation.
Persian period
From the 6th century BC to including the first half of the 4th century BC, many of the significant Mediterranean peoples came under Achaemenid Persian rule, making them dominate the Mediterranean during all these years. The empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, would include Macedonia, Thrace, and the western Black Sea coast (modern day southeastern and eastern Bulgaria), Egypt, Anatolia, the Phoenician lands, the Levant, and many other basin regions of the Mediterranean later on.The Oxford Classical Dictionary by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth,,"page 1515,"The Thracians were subdued by the Persians by 516"Joseph Roisman, Ian Worthington A Companion to Ancient Macedonia pp. 342–345, John Wiley & Sons, 7 July 2011 Darius the Great (Darius I) is to be credited as the first Achaemenid king to invest in a Persian fleet. Even by then no true "imperial navy" had existed either in Greece or Egypt. Persia would become the first empire, under Darius, to inaugurate and deploy the first regular imperial navy. Both the Phoenicians and the Greeks provided the bulk of the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, alongside the Cypriots and Egyptians.Kaveh Farrokh (2007). Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Osprey Publishing. p. 68. . Full Persian dominance in the Mediterranean ended after the Greco-Persian War in the 5th century BC, and Persia eventually lost all her influence in the Mediterranean in the late 4th century BC following Alexander's conquests.
Hellenistic period
In the northernmost part of ancient Greece, in the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, technological and organizational skills were forged with a long history of cavalry warfare. The hetairoi (Companion cavalry) was considered the strongest of their time.Diodorus Siculus, Arrian Under Alexander the Great, this force turned east, and in a series of decisive battles, it routed the Persian forces and took over as the dominant empire of the Mediterranean. Their Macedonia empire included present-day Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, the Phoenician lands, and many other basin regions of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor.
The major centres of the Mediterranean at the time became part of Alexander's empire as a result. His empire quickly disintegrated, and the Levant, Egypt, and Greece were soon again independent. Alexander's conquests spread Greek knowledge and ideas throughout the region.
Research indicates that between 1,500 BC and 200 BC, the sea level was around 2.5 metres below current levels and rose rapidly to present levels between 200 BC and 200 AD.
Roman–Carthaginian rivalry
These eastern powers soon began to be overshadowed by those farther west. In the Maghreb, the former Phoenician colony of Carthage rose to dominate its surroundings with an empire that contained many of the former Phoenician holdings. However, it was a city on the Italian Peninsula, Rome, that would eventually dominate the entire Mediterranean basin. Spreading first through Italy, Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars, despite Hannibal's famous efforts against Rome in the Second Punic War.
After the Third Punic War, Rome then became the leading force in the western Mediterranean region. The Romans soon spread east, taking Greece, spreading Latin knowledge and thought throughout the regions. By this point the coastal trading cultures were thoroughly dominant over the inland river valleys that had once been the heart of the great powers. Egyptian power moved from the Nile cities to the coastal ones, especially Alexandria. Mesopotamia became a fringe border region between the Roman Empire and the Persians.
Roman Mare Nostrum
When Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean Sea began to be called Mare Nostrum (Latin: "Our Sea") by the Romans. Their empire was centered on this sea and all the area was full of commerce and naval development. For the first time in history, an entire sea (the Mediterranean) was free of piracy. For several centuries, the Mediterranean was a "Roman Lake", surrounded on all sides by the empire.
The empire began to crumble in the 3rd century. It recovered briefly, only to begin its decline again. By 435 AD it had lost present-day southern France and Iberia to the Visigoths, and much of the northern Maghreb (all coastal Roman provinces east of Morocco) to the Vandals, thus ending its monopoly over the Mediterranean coast. Despite this, the Roman Empire did not collapse until 29 May 1453 AD.
Sasanian and Byzantine times
The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire began its domination of the Levant during its wars with neighbouring Sassanid Persia. The rule through the 6th century AD saw climatic instability, causing inconsistent production, distribution, and a general economic decline.Daniel Fuks, Avner Ayalon, et al., "Dust clouds, climate change and coins: consiliences of palaeoclimate and economy in the Late Antique southern Levant", Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant 49/2 (Oct. 2017): 205-223.