Early Colonisation

Bibliographic Data

ID9321985
AuthorsG L Cawkwell (corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume42
Issue2
Pages289-303
Publication date1992-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Classical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-8388 • E-ISSN: 1471-6844
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0009838800015937
OpenAlexW4248695232
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited6

It is commonly supposed that in the eighth century B.c . there was a ‘population explosion’ in Greece which moved the Greeks to send out colonies. A. J. Graham in the Cambridge Ancient History iii, 3 (1982) is typical: ‘The basic active cause of the colonizing movement was overpopulation’; ‘at the very time when the Archaic colonising movement began, in the second half of the eighth century, there was a marked increase in population in Greece’ (p. 157). The presumed connection between overpopulation and colonisation is not immediately obvious. The evidence for the population explosion is found in the increased number of burials in Attica and the Argolid, but Athens sent out no colony before the very end of the seventh century and Argos probably none at all, certainly none in this period. So special explanations have to be formulated for Athens' and Argos' lack of colonies while their postulated ‘population explosion’ is presumed for Greece as a whole and called in to explain the burst of colonising in the eighth century. The hypothesis is not used for seventh-century colonisation when the number of burials declines

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Colonisation · Colonization · Geography · Greeks · Overpopulation · Period (music · Population · Population explosion · Sociology · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Classical Antiquity Studies · Demography · History

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