Beyond the Acropolis

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TjeerdH. vanAndeland Curtis Runnels
Beyond the Acropolis A Kurd Greek Past
The high culture of ancient Greece—the treasures of Mycenae, the philosophy of Plato, the Parthenon in Athens, the plays of Sophocles—is an integral part of our cultural heritage. Beneath these cultural peaks lay the basic agricultural economy that made civilization possible, an economy that has been mostly ignored by archaeologists. Even the ancient Greeks saw only their towns and a few legendary sanctuaries outside them as worthy of interest; the intervening countryside is rarely mentioned and never specifically described in their literature.
Now, for all who are interested in Greece and its role in history and civilization, Beyond the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

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TjeerdH. vanAndeland Curtis Runnels
Beyond the Acropolis A Kurd Greek Past
The high culture of ancient Greece—the treasures of Mycenae, the philosophy of Plato, the Parthenon in Athens, the plays of Sophocles—is an integral part of our cultural heritage. Beneath these cultural peaks lay the basic agricultural economy that made civilization possible, an economy that has been mostly ignored by archaeologists. Even the ancient Greeks saw only their towns and a few legendary sanctuaries outside them as worthy of interest; the intervening countryside is rarely mentioned and never specifically described in their literature.
Now, for all who are interested in Greece and its role in history and civilization, Beyond the Acropolis begins to put flesh to Greek country life, from its earliest beginnings tens of thousands of years ago until the recent past. It is based on a four-year interdisciplinary research project in the southern Argolid, a remote tip of the eastern Peloponnese. Three future volumes will deal in detail and on a more technical level with the project's archaeological, geological, and anthropological findings, and will include full scholarly documentation, which has been omitted here for the benefit of the general reader.
The book reveals a sequence of geologi-(cmtinued on back flap)
(continuedfrom frontflap)
cal, geographic, cultural, and economic images spanning some 50,000 years of human settlement and land use. The peoples of the southern Argolid have had a profound and often destructive impact on their environment, and, conversely, their settlements and population have been influenced by changing environmental conditions, such as the dramatic rise in sea level experienced since the last glacial age. Throughout history, prosperity in the southern Argolid has depended on the larger outside world of Greece and the Aegean, and this dependence has led more than once to the collapse of civilization in the southern Argolid and the virtual abandonment of the region.
This book vividly traces the cycles of growth and decline that characterize the history of rural Greece, and shows clearly the interconnection of a landscape and the people who live upon it. It contains 34 illustrations and 26 maps.
TjeerdH. vanAndelis Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences, and Curtis Runnels is a Lecturer in the Program in Values, Technology, Science, and Society, at Stanford University. Vissza