A History of Europe

From Pre-History to the 21st Century

Jeremy Black

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781398809864
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

A History of Europe is a masterful narrative, bringing together the continent's common threads of history from the end of the ice ages until the present day. Leading historian Professor Jeremy Black takes a journey through the vast sweep of European history, examining events as diverse as the rise of the Roman Empire, the brutal Viking raids, the cultural explosion of the Renaissance period, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of consumer culture in the 21st century. These varied strands are bought together in a clear and concise narrative, perfect for anyone wanting a comprehensive look at Europe's fascinating and complex past.

Chapter 1

The Origins of European Civilization

Beginnings to 500 bce

Europe is a relatively new continent, one shaped by developments over the last 20,000 years. Before that, it has a long geological history shown by strata beginning with the Pre-Cambrian period, which began some 4.6 billion years ago. At various periods, there was land or sea cover, very different temperatures and vegetation, and more or less geological activity in the shape of volcanoes. Across geological time Europe was very much affected by the continental drift of tectonic plates that had occurred ever since the crust of the Earth cooled.

Europe was part of Laurasia, an enormous continent that also included North America. About 300 million years ago, this joined with Gondwanaland, the great southern continent, to form Pangaea, a supercontinent. Around 200 million to 180 million years ago Laurasia and Gondwanaland split and, later, each divided further. As a result, Eurasia (the combined landmass of Europe and Asia) separated from North Africa and was left with only a tenuous link with Africa. Subsequently, Eurasia itself was shaped within essentially its current position. Geographically, Eurasia is a key element as, from that perspective, Europe is an extension of Asia.

Human history in Europe, or at least that of organized human life, was set within a much shorter timescale of climate change, most prominently the impact of the Ice Ages and of their end at about 10,000 bce (the last one had peaked around 18,000 bce). On a lesser scale, subsequent global climatic changes have also been significant, such as the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the 14th to 17th centuries. That pattern of change remains the case today, with global warming and its particular impact on sea levels. Change is both significant and unpredictable.

Prehistoric Humans

Our understanding of human migration to Europe is rapidly changing, as new archaeological finds and the extensive use of genetics are presenting a picture of the first humans in the continent arriving earlier than had been hitherto understood. Analysis of the tooth of a 7.2 million-year-old primate Graecopithecus found in Greece in 2017 suggested that the skeleton shared its ancestry with the genus Homo and was a potential human ancestor. Footprints discovered in Crete in 2010 were left 5.7 million years ago, suggest that a bipedal hominid creature had made them.

Very different shorelines existed in this period and many Mediterranean islands were joined to the mainland, so the distinction between Africa and Europe is not as it is at present, nor are environmental considerations like rainfall levels.

Although it is difficult to be precise, given the limited and ambiguous nature of much of the evidence, there is continuing proof of the spread of humans in search of food. Climate conditions were a factor and these suggest a move out of Africa into Europe around 190,000 to 220,000 years ago. The degree of competition and conflict between the different species of hominids is not clear. The longevity and diffusion of Homo Sapiens is being pushed back. There is evidence of the co-existence of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon humans, the origins of modern Homo Sapiens, while in 1999 a Palaeolithic skeleton with a legacy from both was discovered near Lisbon. DNA analysis indicates there was some interbreeding, with Neanderthal DNA found in modern humans. But Neanderthals came to an end as a distinct species, although the suggested dates for when this happened vary greatly.

At around 16,000 bce the islands of Sicily and Malta were joined to Italy, Corsica was joined to Sardinia, and much of the lower Volga delta was part of a larger Caspian Sea. The geological shaping of Europe continued into the last 10,000 years and within that period the land link between Britain and continental Europe was broken (around 6500 bce) as a result of the rise in sea level following the melting of the ice caps at the end of the last Ice Age and the release of large amounts of water. This process, and the previous glaciation linked to successive advances of the ice, each of which was followed by a retreat, also greatly affected the more detailed surface geology of much of Europe. The melting of the ice also led to the upward movement of strata that had been weighed down by the ice cap. This process is visible in the raised shorelines of coastal regions such as north-west Scotland.

Large rivers fed by snow melt gouged huge valleys, while glaciers both along their course and at their end left massive deposits of rock and sediment known as moraines. What is now the Baltic Sea was occupied 9,000 years ago by a large area of water called Lake Ancylus, which had no link to the Atlantic Ocean, while the Black Sea was not joined to the Mediterranean until about 2500 bce. The modern regions of Europe emerged as climate and physical geography combined to produce very different outcomes, from the flat, tundra-like and cold lands of northern Europe to the hot, high mountains of southern Spain.

The end of the last Ice Age was followed by the northward movement of forest and wildlife zones, and hunter-gatherers followed. Woodlands provided shelter for animals including deer, which in turn attracted hunters. Human adaptation to the environment rapidly became the moulding of that environment, notably at the micro-level, to suit the need for habitation, foraging for and growing food, and hunting and later keeping animals. A key drive in history, this moulding was powered by the need for resources and space, and was shaped by, and, in turn, shaped, ideologies and the understanding of the environment.

In time the human species spread to much of Europe, including less hospitable areas such as the North Atlantic (where the first settlement was made on the Faroe Islands in about 825), Iceland in 874, and in Madeira probably in the early 1420s (although there are suggestions of earlier settlement there).

Early Europeans learned to find food sources, to kill, use and/or control animals, and to create shelters from what was available. For example, animal skins were used for clothing and also for settlement, with wooden poles covered by skins providing portable tents. Large animal bones, notably those of mammoths, were used in Ukraine to provide structure for shelters.

Humans also tried to establish systems of belief that would help to locate them in time and space and to make sense of their world and experiences. People retained useful objects for future use, used ideas of symmetry in their crafts, and performed tasks entailing division of labour. Although the evidence for this period is limited and affected by weathering, ploughing and other activity, there are archaeological records, such as the well-known cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and in Spain and elsewhere. For example, in Portugal cave paintings from around 15,000 bce survive in the Gruta do Escoural (Escoural Cave) in the Côa Valley. Other important evidence of early human artistic life include the stylized female figurines found across Europe dating from about 23,000 bce. These may have been linked to fertility rituals.

The impressive cave paintings of bison at Altamira in Spain are an example of early human artistic endeavours.

The Birth of Agriculture

The movement from merely harvesting, grinding and storing wild grains for food, to developing their cultivation, was a slow one. Farming had begun in the Middle East by around 10,000 bce, but did not spread into Europe for another 3,000 years. Widespread use of agriculture in the continent was first seen in Greece in approximately 7000 bce, when the first farming villages appeared. By 6000 bce it had spread north into the Balkans and west across the Adriatic into southern Italy. By around 5000 bce there was farming across much of Europe south of the Baltic Sea and North Sea, and later it developed in these regions too. At the same time hunting, fishing (including collecting of shellfish), and gathering wild plants continued.

The increasing yields from agriculture and the development of tools such as the plough encouraged the clearing of forests. Once they became established, agricultural skills diffused, although the pace was sometimes slow and in Europe there was no equivalent to the intensive, irrigated agriculture seen in Egypt, Iraq and China. Europe lacked the organizational structures to provide such systems, partly because its governance was simpler and its population smaller. Nonetheless, ritual centres like the vast and complex tombs of the Boyne Valley in Ireland must have taken hundreds of thousands of man-hours to construct. The spread of domestic animals – cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, brought milk, wool and an ability to pull ploughs, and was followed by wheeled vehicles.

Surviving evidence of year-round human presence increased as settlements became fixed; for example, on hilltops in the lower Tagus Valley in Portugal in about 5000 bce. Increasingly, these settlements were not simply habitations. Instead, there was greater sophistication, for example seen in the ‘causewayed’ camps, ritual monuments and burial chambers in Europe from the Neolithic period (c.4000–2000 bce). Burial centres were an important aspect of society and relationships between generations and ancestor-observance, or even worship, seems to have been important across Europe.

Although the creation of settlements was a key development, it does not cover the full range of change relating to the birth of agriculture. For example, on the Eurasian steppe in what is now European Russia, there was a more mobile culture linked to seasonal migration in search of pasture.

Megalithic Remains in Portugal

Dolmens are single-chamber megalithic (stone) tombs that can still be seen across much of Europe. The largest of these is the Anta Grande do Zambujeiro (the Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro) near Evora in Portugal (close to the Cromeleque dos Almendres, a far-flung oval of 95 granite monoliths). It is thought to have been constructed around 4000–3000 bce. There are also megalithic burial chambers in the region around Lisbon. Stone remains provide good archaeological evidence, unlike structures built of wood or mud. Such tombs were the product of societies which have left far less evidence for their wider activities.

Metalworking

Between 7000 bce and 5000 bce people in south-east Europe and western Asia discovered an important by-product of the use of fire; namely, that heat could also be used to isolate metals from ore-bearing deposits. Soft metals, which melt at low temperatures, were the first to be used, which explains why copper was the basis of metal technology before iron. The long-lasting Stone Age began to be replaced by the successive ages of metal. Metals offered greater potency than stone, not least because they provided stronger penetration and weight, the key requirements for success in hand-to-hand combat. They were also less bulky, adding to ease of use and mobility, which was more significant because people then moved and fought on foot.

However, there were no revolutionary changes. Instead, there was a considerable overlap of flint tools (including weapons mounted in wood or bone hafts) with copper, copper with bronze, and bronze with iron, rather than a sudden and complete supplanting of one technology by another. ‘Otzi’, a corpse from roughly 3000 bce found frozen in the ice of the European Alps, had a copper axe, a flint knife and flint-tipped arrows with a bow. He was wounded, if not killed, by similar weapons.

Metal weapons were generally found in more complex societies. This was especially the case once metalworking began to require the gathering of different resources, and therefore trade and the ability to finance it. Trade had developed as the flint needed for agricultural tools and axes was mined and exchanged. Salt and amber were other important goods traded over long distances. Commerce was particularly important along coasts, rivers, and hill routes above readily flooded lowlands. Individual burials with rich grave-goods (some brought by trade), suggesting a more stratified system, were a sign of these more complex societies.

The Rise of Fortifications

Archaeological research continues to provide fresh evidence of the nature of society and of the range of activity during the Bronze Age. For example, in 2012–13 sophisticated Bronze Age fortifications were discovered at La Bastida in south-eastern Spain. These included masonry walls partly flanking an entrance passage and five solid square protruding towers resting on carefully prepared foundations to prevent sliding down the steep hill, a considerable feat. There was also a water cistern. The Iron Age saw an increase in the number of hill forts, many of which were probably places of refuge as well as defensive sites where food could be stored. Hilltops were also within visual contact of each other, allowing people to send messages.

The Copper Age (c.4500–2200 bce) was followed by the Bronze Age (c.2200–800 bce). As a harder alloy of copper that was more effective for tools and weapons because it could hold its shape under greater pressure, bronze replaced not only copper but also hard stone and flint, which were more difficult to shape. Bronze required copper, which often had to be exported, for example from Sardinia to Greece, as well as tin. The quest for tin led to interest from Mediterranean peoples in Atlantic Europe, including in Spain, Portugal and western France, and up to Britain. The Phoenicians developed a trading ba...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Origins of European Civilization
• Chapter 2: The Classical World
• Chapter 3: Centuries of Disruption
• Chapter 4: The Middle Ages
• Chapter 5: Renaissance and Reformation
• Chapter 6: From the Baroque to Napoleon
• Chapter 7: Industrial Europe
• Chapter 8: Europe at War
• Chapter 9: Post-War Europe
• Chapter 10: The Future of Europe
• A Timeline of European History
• Picture Credits
• Copyright