This article covers the Greek civilization as a whole.

For the history of the modern nation state,

see History of modern Greece.

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Neolithic Greece

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The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state

of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically.
The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout the ages and as a result, the
history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Generally, the history of Greece is divided
into the following periods:

 Paleolithic Greece, starting c. 3.3 million years ago and ending in 20000 BC.

Significant geomorphological and climatic changes occurred in the modern Greek
area which were definitive for the development of fauna and flora and the survival
of Homo sapiens in the region.

 Mesolithic Greece, starting in 13000 BC and ending around 7000 BC, was a period
of long and slow development of primitive human "proto-communities".

 Neolithic Greece, beginning with the establishment of agricultural societies around

7000 BC and ending c. 3200 – c. 3100 BC, was a vital part of the early history of
Greece because it was the base for early Bronze Age civilizations in the area. The
first organized communities developed and basic art became more advanced in
Neolithic Greece.

 Bronze Age Greece (c. 3200 – c. 1100 BC) began with the transition to a metal-
based economy during the Early Helladic period of mainland Greece (c. 3200 – c. 
2000 BC). Meanwhile, Cycladic culture prospered in the Cyclades (c. 3200 – c. 1050
BC) and Minoan civilization around Crete (c. 3500 – c. 1100 BC). The Bronze Age
ended with the rise and fall of the Mycenaean Greek palace culture (c. 1750 – c. 
1050 BC) in the Late Bronze Age collapse.
 Ancient Greece usually encompasses Greek antiquity, as well as part of the region's
late prehistory (Late Bronze Age). It lasted from c. 1200 BC – c. 600 AD and can be
subdivided into the following periods:
o Greek Dark Ages (or Iron Age, Homeric Age), 1100–800 BC
o Archaic period, 800–490 BC
o Classical period, 490–323 BC
o Hellenistic period, 323–146 BC
o Roman Greece, covering the period of the Roman conquest of Greece
from 146 BC – 324 AD
 Byzantine Greece covers the period of Greece under the Byzantine Empire, lasting
from the establishment of Constantinople as the capital city of Byzantium in 324 AD
until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.