Eric R. Force (ejforce@aol.com; comments welcome at this address or below this posting)
A first version of this blog was completed at the end of 2011, but new results and a few revisions need to be added. Hence this 2012 series, in slightly different order. Those already familiar with my blog may enjoy a RE-introduction, as this posting is the one with the greatest feel of “boots on the ground.”
I was in Ajo Arizona in February of 2004, finishing a geologic mapping project and living in my little trailer, when a pattern crystallized in my mind one night, as my thoughts turned to a course I was both taking and helping with at the University of Arizona (1). The pattern, I realized, was that originating sites of the “great ancient civilizations” of the old world were clustered around the southern boundary of the Eurasian tectonic plate and its branches almost like beads on a string (fig. 1). There seems every reason in the world that this should NOT be the case. These locations were (and are) subject to periodic—or frequent--destruction of every bit of preceding material progress, and subject to all the accompanying trauma. Why should such locales play host to the greatest accomplishments of antiquity?
A great deal of library searching ensued, in fact it’s continued ever since. The results of these researches were summarized in this blog in 2011 (2). Here I’d like to describe a few of the experiences I’ve had as I tried to get a feel for this pattern on the ground. These experiences proved to be more vivid than the literature.
Three ancient cultures form a rough sort of composite transect across the boundary between the between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, though a transect approach was not in my mind when I was at their sites. The cultures are the ancient Greeks, Etruscans, and southern Gauls. Greece is the very complex intersection area at the junction of the Hellenic-Turkish, African, and Eurasian plates. Etruria, in northern Italy, is about 100 miles (160 km) from the boundary of the African and Eurasian plates, and southern Gaul is more than twice that far from it (fig. 1).
A comparison of the three at any given time period in antiquity would show great contrasts, but because the attributes we call civilization spread from east to west in the Mediterranean, this might be unfair. If instead we look at each of them as the more complex cultures to the east first influenced them, we still see remarkable contrasts in their responses. As it happens, I examined sites of that type in all three cultures.
Figure 1. Locations of originating sites of 13 prominent ancient civilizations relative to various aspects of the southern boundary of the Eurasian plate (after Force, 2008 and Force and McFadgen, 2010). Civilizations (and sites) shown are 1—Roman (Rome), 2—Etruscan (Tarquinii-Veii), 3—Greek (Corinth) and Mycenaean (Mycenae), 4—Minoan (Knossos-Phaestos), 5 and 6—West Asian (Tyre and Jerusalem), 7—Assyrian (Ninevah), 8—Mesopotamian (Ur-Uruk), 9—Persian (Susa-Pasargadae), 10—Indus (Mohenjodaro), 11—Aryan India (Hastinapura), 12—Egyptian (Memphis), and 13—Chinese (Zhengzhou).
Greece.-- Our modern civilizations still hold classical Greek civilization in awe. Its contributions range so widely that most readers will be acquainted with them in their own areas of interest, and probably aware of them also in literature, philosophy, medicine, music, courthouse architecture . . .
Why was it the Greeks that accomplished so much? How did this far-flung group of cultural entities recovering from a 300-year hangover following the end of the Bronze Age (3) seize on a single cultural identity and mythic history, and rise to re-invent the Mediterranean world in every way from philosophy to warfare? The acceleration of Greek culture is startling—prior to 1000 B.C. it was based on tribally-oriented villages, but only about 200 years later there was a strong pan-Hellenic consciousness complete with a profound literature, colonies all over the Mediterranean, ceramic arts being widely traded and imitated . . . . and the acceleration continued for another 300 years, far surpassing any initial outside influences.
It was not an easy road. Greek city-states were frequently at war with each other. Agriculture was a challenge; much of Greece’s soil had already been eroded by the time classical Greek civilization began. And there were frequent destructive earthquakes; recurrence intervals were as little as 20 years in many places.
Earthquakes were such a common part of ancient Greek life that they became a part of the cultural texture. Today we see temples flattened in antiquity (e.g. Olympia) and rebuilt temples (e.g. Delphi); these two most important sites for the coalescence of pan-Hellenic awareness were both repeatedly beset by earthquakes. There are entire submerged cities (e.g. Helike), and a submerged early Christian basilica (Kenchraia). According to Thucydides, the directions taken by the Peloponnesian War were diverted nine times by earthquakes (4). Both Thucydides and Herodotus attributed to earthquakes basic cultural discontinuities in Greek history. There are many other records of cultural responses such as tectonically-induced changes in religious demography (Corinth), slave insurrections (Sparta), influence on oracular pronouncements (Delphi), and diverted navies (Actium). Earthquakes punctuate Greek dramas, particularly those of Euripides, who used earthquakes like a more modern playwright might use thunderstorms. Particularly direct—and still visible--is an evolution in the sophistication of anti-seismic devices over the centuries (fig. 2); the preservation of stone structures containing segmented columns in Greece is a testament to the effectiveness of these devices.
Figure 2.—Stonework at Delphi incorporating probable anti-seismic features (pocket knife for scale). The T-shaped channels cut in this foundation for a column would typically have accepted a bronze key wrapped in lead, imparting both cushioning and tensile strength, and linking this block to adjacent ones. This block was part of a temple of Apollo rebuilt after its precursor was destroyed in 373 B.C. ; similar features became widespread after 400 B.C., and later Roman stonework in Greece adopted the same technology (fig. 3 in the Aug. 6 posting).
Our main interest here is how classical Greece could have gotten so great despite its tectonic environment, and surely the most important clues are in its earliest “civilized” period, called the Geometric period (700-900 BC) from its pottery style. The most important early Geometric sites in a commercial-cultural sense are Corinth (5) and several settlements of the island of Euboea (generally called Evia these days), separated from the Greek mainland by a narrow seaway, the Euboean gulf. It was these settlements that colonized and/or traded earliest and most actively all through the Mediterranean. The early Euboean sites are best preserved; scattered through the modern towns and adjacent shores of Eretria and Lefkandi are many remnants of Geometric-era walls that I wandered among. Perhaps most evocative is the ruin in Eretria of an entire temple from the Geometric period—a precursor of typical Greek temples but with wooden columns—at an angle but mostly within the ruins of a larger, later, and more substantial “Archaic” temple.
Eretria and Lefkandi alternated playing very prominent roles in the rise of Greek civilization in the Geometric era. Eretria already occupied over a square kilometer, and the wealth of material remains from tombs of this period is astounding at both sites, and indicates extensive trade with western Asia via Phoenicia, the Black Sea region, all the Cycladic Islands, Greek settlements on the Ionian coast adjacent to present-day Turkey, and the western Mediterranean, including sites on the southern Italian peninsula that soon became called Magna Graecia. The earliest Greek literature mentions Euboean seafaring prowess. In other words, these sites were already gathering the wealth, power, and influence that became hallmarks of classical Greek civilization, from the 10th century B.C. on. Yet we also know from ancient literature that the area suffered frequent earthquakes. It lies at the intersection of the extension of the Euboean rift and the North Anatolian fault, which forms the boundary between Hellenic and Eurasian plates. More details on Greek culture and its tectonic environment (and references thereto) are given in my blog-post of Aug. 6, 2011.
It’s clear that active tectonism was a companion to life in ancient Greece. One can imagine with some legitimacy “Archaic” Eretria after a major earthquake--the aftershocks fade away, the mud bricks being stacked to become houses once again, and the town leaders gathering around the ruins of the venerable temple. “It was time to replace it anyway. We could make it bigger and taller; it could practically surround the old foundations if we used stone columns. The traders have brought in bronze keys to keep the column segments in good shape when it quakes again, and we do have the income to swing it!”
Thus classical Greece in general and these Euboean snapshots of its earliest dawn show that tectonism and development of civilization certainly came hand in hand. Is it possible that tectonism somehow played a part in molding this development, despite its more obvious horrors?
Etruria.--If our gaze is shifted to the west and to a slightly later time, we find another culture becoming very complex. The ancient Etruscan civilization of north-central Italy is not as well known as one would like; only a few “great” ancient civilizations are as poorly known--and none in Europe. This is not due to a lack of interest, but to a paucity of preserved remains of two things one expects from a great civilization—monumental architecture and a literature in its own language. The Etruscans had both, but the above-ground part of their architecture was of wood (which rotted away) except for terracotta sculptural decoration, and Etruscan literature is preserved only in fragments--the Romans apparently destroyed what they could find of it--and is therefore incompletely deciphered. What remains was enough to impress me tremendously with the creativity, artistry, and complexity of Etruscan culture, especially their statuary, bronzes, jewelry, and paintings, and--most remarkable of all—the architecture of their tombs. Indeed, as I delved into what is known of Etruscan customs, I was impressed that much we think of as Roman (including some unseemly bits) was actually learned from their neighbors to the north, already long-established while Rome was still a village.
This culture is called Etruscan as they passed the 750 B.C. mark, the approximate time when their ancestors, the indigenous culture known as Villanovan, increased in complexity, wealth, and power. Culturally influenced by Greek colonies to the south, the Etruscans imported and imitated Greek goods (especially Euboean goods!) literally by the ton, but also developed distinctive goods of their own valued for their beauty all over the Mediterranean. This rather startling flowering of cultural complexity is known as the Etruscans’ Orientalizing period, extending to about 575 B.C. Among the items borrowed from the Greeks was an alphabet, but the Etruscan literature based on the fragments so far recovered was not extensive. Greek mythology was extensively incorporated into Etruscan artistic endeavors.
Driving today through northern Lazio, southern Tuscany, and western Umbria, I saw villages crowded into every conceivable location. Yet each settlement proved to be part of a nearly vanished Etruscan landscape, marked by a fragment of wall here or arched gate there. Etruscan remains are more obvious in nearby canyons and neighboring plateaus as huge underground cemeteries cut into bedrock, the stone architecture of which imitates above-ground Etruscan cities that have rotted away. Surveys show that the Etruscans in this region were using every bit of available land by 500 B.C., and the extent of Etruscan walled cities in some cases is greater than at any later period including the present. More details on Etruscan culture (with references) are given in my blog-post of Aug. 6, 2011.
Etruscan wealth was based on fertile soil, maritime prowess, and valuable mineral deposits especially iron. Etruscan military power on both land and sea made their cities competitive with Greece and Carthage in the Tyrrhenian Sea and northern Italy until about 300 B.C., by which time Rome had started conquering Etruscan city-states one at a time.
Few above-ground remains tell us much about how the Etruscans lived up there. Most Etruscan cities are still towns, and excavation possibilities are limited. Some small sites are exceptions, for example one I visited named San Giovenale, excavated by a team of Swedish archaeologists. Like other nearby sites, San Giovenale consists of an acropolis at the western end of a narrow plateau forming a sort of peninsula bordered by stream gorges, with more extensive neighboring plateaus being the basis of agriculture. Several excavated room-blocks consist of big foundation stones, adobe walls, and paved floors of tile-roofed structures dating from the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Even in this small site, there is abundant evidence of specialization and organization. Arranged around these room-blocks are rock-cut tombs like the more famous ones of Cerveteri and Tarquinia, formerly linked to the settlements by wooden bridges. San Giovenale sites were re-organized in the last quarter of the 6th century B.C. following an earthquake that destroyed some rooms. This period is that in which Etruscan culture was undergoing the transformation that catapulted the Etruscans into the rank of the great Mediterranean civilizations of the time.
The tectonic environment of the Etruscans is an order of magnitude calmer than that of ancient Greece. The nominal plate boundary is over a hundred kilometers to the east (fig. 1), roughly along the eastern shore of north-central Italy. Much of the modern seismicity of the region is actually along extensional (i.e. crustal-stretching) faults in the Apennines, much closer to the Etruscan heartland. Extension has produced moderate seismicity. Only San Giovenale and a few other sites give evidence of ancient seismic activity in Etruria itself.
It is the abundance of young volcanic rocks that most strongly suggests a tectonic aspect to the natural environment of Etruria, as they are probably related to melting at depth along the plate boundary to the east. The volcanics range in age from 40,000 to 800,000 years, i.e. some so young that the local Mesolithic remains would be buried. The volcanoes are still apparent on the land surface—they form broad arches across what would otherwise be a coastal plain, but are deeply incised in canyons cut by even-younger streams. Most of the Etruscan sites that seamlessly record the transition from Villanovan culture to Etruscan civilization follow the margin of the volcanic terrane of southern Etruria, suggesting its importance to the Etruscans. I described this interesting relation in greater detail in the posting of Aug. 6, 2011.
Etrurian seismicity is moderate and volcanism slightly predated the Etruscans themselves. But so is Etruscan cultural development moderate. Despite great enthusiasm for the Etruscans (including mine) and despite the poor luck of the Etruscans in having their accomplishments preserved, I can find no claim that a profound literature was lost, or that their wooden architecture surpassed that of previous civilizations. Their cultural response to contact with neighboring civilizations was startlingly swift and resulted in work of great beauty, but was somewhat imitative or derivative. Focusing on that cultural transition, as we have here, one would conclude that the tectonic environment may have had some influence, but in moderation to produce a moderate effect.
Gaul.--The Gauls of southern France were a tribal culture until overrun by Rome in 121 B.C. They imported trade goods from more complex cultures, and these goods are a main basis for dividing their history into a Hallstatt era from the 8th to 5th centuries B.C., then a La Tene era until Roman takeover. La Tene goods show contact with Phoenician, Etruscan, and Greek traders, and later on by trade goods of Roman origin, notably undiluted low-grade wine supplied by Roman slave traders (a time-honored tradition, it seems). Cultural evolution was otherwise noticeable only near the coast. Southern Gaul was a “world of villages”, many of them “oppida”, or fortified hilltop villages (6). The Gauls had their own language(s) and eventually their own script in borrowed alphabets. Stone foundations of originally wooden or dry-stone structures with thatched roofs characterized their architecture. Their religion was governed by druid priest-chieftains, influential in all aspects of Gaulish life because of its animistic aspects. A rationale used by the Romans for their conquest of Gaul was the human sacrifice they reported from there.
The takeover by Rome (to form “Gallo-Roman” culture) forced the introduction of widespread change. Authorities differ on the pervasiveness of Roman influence even at this period. Certainly Latin literature reports that the descendants of Gaulish chieftains became local aristocrats and prodigious consumers of Roman goods, but aspects of the previous culture and religion lingered, especially in smaller settlements (6).
Many large sites of regional Gaulish culture are burdened by a modern town (Narbonne, Lyon), and thus either inaccessible to excavation or badly disturbed. Some small sites are well known, however; I visited the Oppidum d’Enserune near Bezier, on a breezy mesa-like hilltop overlooking a coastal plain. The site as excavated to date consists of a narrow fringe of rooms following the long margin of the hilltop, much as one might expect for defensive purposes. The contents of large burial urns sunk into the earth record a transition from bone and stone tools to foreign trade goods, such as Etruscan ceramics from the 6th century B.C. and Greek commodities especially in the 4th century B.C.. It is common for sophisticated imported wares to be crudely inscribed in local characters with (deceased?) owners’ names. The metal goods are a reminder that the Iron Age had begun centuries earlier elsewhere, but the collections suggest a Neolithic culture with imported goods. Under the Romans, architecture shifted; some houses sported undersized Greco-Roman columns that are somewhat comical, cut from local coquina. Despite the imitations, the impression is one of cultural inertia and a lack of originality in meeting new cultural influences over a long period of time. Indeed, were it not for foreign trade goods, the designations of Hallstadt and La Tene cultural stages would not be possible; indigenous culture remained about the same.
The tectonic environment of this area is a similarly short story—the nearest plate boundary is about 300 km away across the Alps. The area is seismically quiescent and has no Holocene volcanism. Thus both cultural development and tectonic activity are minimal.
Comparison.--Clearly, these three cultures developed quite differently. The Romans took over all three of them within two hundred years of each other, and the contrast in their fates illustrates the disparity in their cultural achievements. 1) In various southern Gaulish sites, enforced re-organization created pretentious upper classes that strove to imitate Roman fashions. 2) Etruscan culture had already influenced Roman culture quite heavily, and the Romans felt compelled to erase the record of that influence. 3) Roman respect for Greek cultural achievement was such that enslaved Greeks were brought to Rome to tutor Roman students.
Our three cultures are consistent with some direct relation between activity of the tectonic environment and acceleration of cultural complexity (from very little for either in Gaul, moderate for both in Etruria, and very high for both in Greece). The relation seems fairly obvious if inherently qualitative (7).
However, it would be easy to counterfeit such a relation by cherry-picking three sites, and I would not expect the reader to take the tectonic relationship too seriously on this basis alone. The contrast is indicative of how the relation looks on the ground, and I feel these sites are meaningful because they typify changes that took place in their cultures. I have described the sites here because they are evocative of those changes.
Recall however that we’re searching for the meaning of figure 1, which shows thirteen great ancient civilizations. The three sites described and their cultures are consistent with this figure and give us some feeling for its meaning, but a look at all the civilizations is indicated in a search for more rigor. I propose such a tour, to see whether the relation holds up when looked at more closely. The more complete population can be looked at in various ways to try to tease out possible dynamics. Of course, those readers eager to see what I finally conclude about these dynamics are free to look at the concluding posts of the 2011 series of this blog; I recommend Dec. 23 (and for cultural aspects Oct. 23).
Notes
1. The course focused on the tectonic environment of ancient Greece. Only those who know George Davis can imagine that such a course could be invented and organized, co-taught with Mary Voyatsis of the classics department of the UofA. I was involved with the course twice—perhaps I’m a slow learner. This may be the place to acknowledge that by 2011 many, many eminently qualified people have helped with this project. In some sort of order of importance these include Bruce McFadgen, Gary Huckleberry, Claudio Vita-Finzi, Ed Wright, John Dohrenwend, Barbara Mills, Blake Edgar, Evelyn Roeloffs, David Soren, Arda Ozacar, Iain Stewart, Emma Blake, Rob Schon, Wayne Howell, Henry Spall, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Chris Eastoe, Bob Tilling, Brian Skinner, Tom Fenn, Victoria Hopgood (Buck), Bob Hatcher, M. H. Ramesht, David Malakoff, Manuel Sintubin, and Douglas Frink. Harry Whittier, Dan Kent, Boz Williams, Alistair Gill, and my wife Jane Brandon Force contributed ideas; many people encouraged me including E-an Zen, Norman Herz, and Ghasem Khosravi ; and many others helped with logistics most notably Victoria Brandon, Jim Bliss, and Greg Force. I thank all who responded to my former website. My wife and I also acknowledge the hospitality of Pietro Labate and Joan and Mark Gettings in Etruria and southern Gaul respectively. This blog is affiliated with International Geological Correlation Project 567, "Earthquake Archaeology."
2. And some summaries have been published as Force (2008) and Force and McFadgen (2010). Pdf’s on request.
3. I have separated the beginning of classical Greek culture from the preceding Mycenaean culture of the Bronze Age. This became a controversial call with the discovery that the Mycenaeans spoke a predecessor of Greek. Some classicists do, some don’t separate them. In my posting of July 7, 2011 I described the Mycenaeans and their tectonic environments.
4. Thucydides was also the first to write that the giant sea waves we call tsunami were initiated by seismic events—and the Greeks associated these phenomena in another way; the Greek god of earthquakes and of the sea were one and the same, Poseidon.
5. In this introductory posting I have not used many references; these were provided in individual postings. But there’s an exception I’d like to make here—I’ve been taken to task by Dienekes’ anthropology blog for using Corinth as a precocious center in this early period (in my 2008 paper). As I see it, he has not been following the literature; he has insulted Coldstream (2003) and other scholars, not me. Of course, it doesn’t matter; I could just have easily used Lefkandi or Eretria, as I have here.
6. My description of the transition from pre-Roman to Roman Gaul follows Woolf (2000)
7. I have been encouraged by some anthropologists not to try to quantify this relation between civilization complexity and tectonic environment. However, using Childe-style criteria and distance to tectonic boundaries, it is possible, and I used these criteria in my posting of Sept. 24, 2011
References
Coldstream, J.N., 2003, Geometric Greece 900–700 BC.: London, Routledge.
Force, E. R., 2008, Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations in the eastern hemisphere: Geoarchaeology v. 23 #5, p. 644-653.
Force, E. R., and McFadgen, B. G., 2010, Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations: opportunities for archaeoseismological and anthropological studies: Geological Society of America Special Paper 471, p. 21-28.
Woolf, G., 2000, Becoming Roman—the origins of provincial civilization in Gaul: Cambridge University Press
