Prehistory
Until the most recent Ice Age ended approximately
10,000 years ago, glaciers covered northern Europe,
mammoth roamed the tundra to the south and most people
lived in wooded areas nearer to the Mediterranean.
As the ice sheets receded, forests spread across Europe.
The human population increased and most of the forests
were cut down to be replaced by farms, towns and roads.
Aside from a few national parks, natural wilderness
areas remain only in parts of Scandinavia and
Russia,
although the continent is still home to more than
a quarter of the forests in the world. Larger predators
such as bears and wolves were either hunted to extinction
or lost their natural habitat in most regions, though
they still survive in remote parts of northern and
eastern Europe. Many smaller species including foxes
and birds along with herbivores such as deer have
adapted to life in countryside shaped by human activity
or in urban areas, among patches of greenery.
The word Europe is thought to originate from Europa,
which was the name applied by the Greeks to their
mainland more than two thousand years ago and later
included areas further north. There is evidence of
human activity in Europe dating back to Palaeolithic
times, ranging from ancient tools hundreds of thousands
of years old, to carved bone and ivory figures and
cave paintings from between 35,000 and 10,000 years
ago. Between 10,000 BC and 2,500 BC, the Mesolithic
and Neolithic periods, people began to change from
a hunter gather existence to living in settled agricultural
communities, which eventually developed into cities.
The Bronze Age between 2,500 BC and 700 BC, saw the
rise of civilizations in and around the Mediterranean,
such as that of the Minoan's around 1,900 BC and the
Mycenaean's around 1,600 BC. The remains of the city
of Troy also date to this period, during which Homer
set The Iliad and the Odyssey, written in the 8th
century B.C. and regarded as the first great works
of Western literature. These years saw developments
such as writing, increasingly advanced art and architecture,
as well the use of new materials. This period of prosperity
ended when either climatic change, war or a combination
of the two led to economic and social collapse across
the Mediterranean and was followed by a 'Dark Age'
which lasted from the 12th century BC until the 9th
century BC. Lacking the manufacturing, trade and urban
centers of previous generations, most people survived
these centuries farming the land, whilst being ruled
by local Kings.
