The wider view: Europe in its setting
Although often discussed as though it were a separate continent, Europe is
but a part of the great land mass of Eurasia. The first humans entered Europe
from Western Asia. Throughout prehistory wave after wave of innovation and
ideas swept into Europe from the Near East. Ex oriente lux (light
comes from the east) has come to refer not just to the rising sun, but to
cultural and even religious enlightenment. The Hellenistic era is generally
seen as the period at which innovation within Europe and
expansion out of it began, with the conquests of Alexander the
Great, but not until the Industrial
Revolution did Europe become a power-house, economic and military, which
dominated the globe.
So much is common knowledge. The essays in this section focus on new discoveries giving us a fresh perspective. Since writing began in the cities of Mesopotamia and art was also advanced there, the first indisputable image or written record of an innovation often appears there. Many innovations were therefore credited to Mesopotamia which now seem to belong rather to the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent, the Eurasian steppe or even further afield. Pottery appeared in the Far East and Africa long before it was made in the Near East. Pottery reached Europe first from the steppe. Agriculture began along the great curve of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains. Metal-working too began in the hills that provided the ore. Gold was first worked in the Balkans. Horses were domesticated on the steppe and donkeys in North Africa. Wheeled vehicles were probably first made in the European steppe/forest zone. Light spoke-wheel chariots appeared first on the West Asian steppe. Wine was first produced on the southern slopes of the Caucasus, where grapes grew wild. Dairy farming, as opposed to herding cows primarily for meat (with occasional milking), first appeared around the Sea of Marmara - on both the European and Anatolian coasts. Wool sheep may have been first bred in the Caucasus, where the earliest surviving woollen textile has been discovered.
Many of these innovations were spread east along the steppe corridor as far as North West China and westward into Europe with Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their European spread belongs in the Peopling of Europe section, but in this section the focus is on the movement across the steppe. The Indo-European migrants form just a part of the long story of the nomads of the steppe. From the east came the Huns, Turkic tribes, and the Mongols, who all had an impact on Europe.
The countries bordering the Mediterranean of Southern Europe, North Africa and the Levant have much in common. The links across the Mediterranean are discussed, starting with the first Mediterraneans, an early lineage of homo sapiens only recently coming into clearer focus.
