Timeline Question 1

Mesolithic - The First Settlers

8000 BCE

• People lived by fishing, hunting and gathering nuts, seeds and edible food.
• Used stone tools and wooden fish traps such as woven traps made of withies.

First Copper Smelting in Anatolia.

6200 BCE

Farming Techniques are Introduced

4500 BCE

• A new way of life, based on farming plants and animals was introduced.
• Once farming was established communities began to settle down.

Houses Become Increasingly Solid and Permanent

4500 BCE

• Late stone age houses became more permanent with thatched roofs and walls of woven hazel or willow rods, then wind proofed with a mixture of clay and dung.
• Earlier houses were often rectangular.

Carpentry and Coppice Woodworking Introduced

4500 BCE

Neolithic - The First Farmer

4000 BCE

• Life became more settled as people began to plant and harvest crops.
• Made pottery vessels that were used for cooking and storing foods.
• Special pots were buried with the dead.

Invention of the Wheel

3650 BCE

Bronze Age Weapons

3500 BCE

• New technologies to refine, smelt and cast metal ores.
• Early civilisations in the middle east began to combine bronze and copper to produce spears, swords, daggers and axes

Simple Pottery Begins to be Made

3500 BCE

• The manufacturing of pottery requires the control of high temperatures and is important for technological development.
• Pottery is important for archaeologists as they are durable and can withstand the dirt for many years.

The Short Sword

3200 BCE

Neolithic - The Tomb Builders

3000 BCE

• People began to build large stone tombs called "megalithic" tombs.
• Some were carved with symbolic patterns.
• Many people were buried in the same tomb.
• Some times rare artefacts were also buried in the tombs.

First Evidence of Habitation at Thebes.

3000 BCE

Small Permanent Settlements are Developed

3000 BCE

• Earlier Neolithic settlements were about one to three houses possibly with a few outbuildings.
• Most settlements were placed at a distance from areas of barrows.

Early Bronze Age - First Metalwork

2500 BCE

• Learned how to extract copper ore from rock.
• An axe head and copper cake were created.

Troy I

2500 BCE

• The first city of Troy was founded in the 3rd Millennium.
• During the bronze age the city became a flourishing mercantile.
• 1900 BC a mass migration was set of by the Hittites.
• A settlement on a sea grit promontory.
• Smaller citadel.
• 300 ft diameter.
• Rectangular houses surrounded by huge walls, towers and gateways.

Metalwork Becomes More Sophisticated

2500 BCE

• The early bronze age brought along the production of more sophisticated metalwork including axes, daggers and 'tanged' spearheads (attached to the shaft by a prong).

Metalworking Develops with Improvements in Furnace Technology

2500 BCE

• The earliest metal work was made of pure copper, bronze or gold.
• Gold was used for ornaments and jewellery, bronze and copper were used for spearheads, axes, knives and daggers.

Bronze Age - The First Goldsmiths

2400 BCE

• Gold was collected from streams and rivers, melted into ingots and hammered into shape to make a sheet of gold.

Troy II

2300 BCE

• Change of culture indicating new people may have taken over.
• Doubled in size.
• Had a lower town and upper citadel with the walls protecting upper acropolis which housed the palace for the king.
• Destroyed by a large fire.
• Copper and bronze weapons.
• Greater range of pottery and more sophisticated imported goods.

Bronze Age - Discovering Bronze

2200 BCE

• Metalsmiths learned that if they mixed a metal called tin with copper they could produce bronze.
• Created bronze axeheads.

Troy III

2200 BCE

• The Trojans rebuilt with a larger citadel but had smaller more condensed houses, suggesting an economic decline.

Evidence of Town Planning and More Sophisticated Architecture

2200 BCE

Bronze Age - Burials and Pottery

2000 BCE

• People began to bury their dead in individual stone lined graves called cists or pits.
• Bowls and vases were buried with the dead.

Troy IV

2000 BCE

• The trend of large walls continued.

Troy V

1700 BCE

• A larger and well planned out layout with roomier houses.
• Bronze vessels.
• General advance in pottery making and decoration.
• One child burial under floor, one human adult bone.
• Larger circuit and extent of walls.

The Sickle Sword

1307 BCE

Troy VI

1250 BCE

• Destroyed around 1250 BC, likely by an earthquake.
• Single arrowhead and no remains of bodies.
• Freestanding houses.
• New pottery styles, well made bronze weapons, imported ivory, storage jars.

Bronze Age - Climate Changes

1200 BCE

• The climate became wetter and cooler.
• People began to cremate their dead and placed the ashes into urns.
• Metalsmiths made bronze spearheads, rapiers and axes.

Roundhouses Become the Typical Domestic Structure

1200 BCE

• Roundhouses were dominant in the later bronze age and iron ages.
• Built with internal roof support post.
• Constructed in the same way as earlier houses but with a circle of internal roof-support pots with a heavier roof covering.

Troy VII a

1180 BCE

• Quickly recovered by hastily rebuilding the city.
• Continued with the trend of having a heavily fortified wall citadel to protect the outer rim of the city from earthquakes and sieges.
• Crowding of houses even in streets and close to the city walls.
• Storage jars hidden under floors possibly suggesting a siege.
• Outside of the acropolis a twisted skeleton with a crushed skull was discovered.

Bronze Age Sword

1100 BCE

• With hilt and leaf shaped blade.

Troy VII b

1000 BCE

• Troy rebuilt and all three cultures had continued.
• Buildings enlarged and use of new building techniques.
• Weapons like those used in the Danube area.

Late Bronze Age - Weapons

900 BCE

• Metalsmiths created a larger number of weapons especially swords and spearheads possibly because the society may have became more violent.

Bronze Age - Trade

800 BCE

• People began trading with other people for precious materials such as amber.

Bronze Age - Hoards

800 BCE

• In the late bronze age many hoards of objects often containing gold were buried in bogs and other watery areas.
• Largest discovery found in 1854 while a railway was being built.
• The hoard had contained hundreds of gold bracelets and seven neck ornaments.

Experts in Bronze Work

800 BCE

• The sheet bronze cauldron is an example of the metal working skill developed.

Troy VIII

700 BCE

• Persian King Xerxes sacrificed 1000 cattle at the sanctuary of Athena while marching through the Hellespontine region on the way to Greece.
• After the Persians defeat Ilion and the territory surrounding it became the continental possessions of Mytilene until the Mytileneln revolt.
• Unoccupied for around 400 years.

Large Bronze Spearhead

700 BCE

The Iron Age

650 BCE

• Iron gradually replaced bronze as the metal used for tools and weapons.
• Bronze was mostly used for horse harness and jewellery while gold was used to make ribbon torcs and neck ornaments.
• Influences form Europe and Britain meant changes in language and decorative styles.

Troy IX

500 BCE

• Rebuilt as Hellenistic and Roman city of Ilium.
• Roman concert hall, baths, market place and council house.
• Destroyed by Roman Commander Fimbria.

Frank Calvert

1865

• Identified the mountain at Hissarlik as the location of Troy.
• Conducted minor excavations.

Heinrich Schliemann

1871

• Ran a three year excavation and found evidence of seven settlements.
• Dug an immense trench.

Wilhelm Dorpfeild

1893

• Opened up the south side of the mound.
• Uncovered the first well preserved Mycenaean palace.

Carl Blegen

1932

• Dug in areas that were untouched.
• Established 50 lesser strata within the nine major cities.

Manfred Korfman

1988

• Located the coastline of the bay.
• Found evidence that suggested that Troy had been occupied for 3000 years.