inhabitants of local settlements. Given the relatively simple
organization, based on households and hamlets, of societies
in Europe before about 2000 b.c.e., it is not really possible to
speak of true social collapse on any large scale.
Rural farmsteads were the prevailing settlement form
during the Bronze Age (ca. 2800–ca. 700 b.c.e.) and Iron Age
(ca. 1000 b.c.e.–ca. 500 c.e.) in most of Europe, though some
larger sites arose that could be considered villages. Th e settle-
ment at Biskupin in Poland, built between 750 and 720 b.c.e.,
was inhabited by several hundred people but abandoned aft er
several decades. Th e two major theories have been advanced
for the abandonment of Biskupin and similar sites nearby.
One is t hat rising water levels in t he la kes t hat surrounded t he
peninsulas on which these sites were built forced the residents
to leave. Th e other is that the local population was driven out
by marauders, possibly Scythians from lands to the east, since
some of the sites show traces of fi re and Scythian-type arrow-
heads have been found in the archaeological deposits.
Farther north there have been studies of Iron Age settle-
ments in Denmark. Some of these settlements may well have
been more densely populated in ancient times than today.
Many other sites appear to have been abandoned when the
food supplies ran out or when the population increased to
such a level that a new settlement had to be established.
Inhabitants of Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain and
France built numerous hill forts. Very many of them are lo-
cated in the southeast of England at sites that have never been
populated since and that were clearly abandoned in ancient
times. Because these settlements had low population densi-
ties and good agricultural land, it seems unlikely that they
suff ered from a lack of food crops. A more probable reason
for their abandonment is social collapse following the emer-
gence of a more powerful local group or federation. For ex-
ample, the Celtic hill fort at Danebury, on the South Downs,
England, near the river Test, was built from the sixth century
b.c.e. and abandoned around 100 b.c.e. aft er what appears to
have been an enemy attack—there is archaeological evidence
that the east gate was burned down, and the remains of bod-
ies were found in charnel pits.
On a much larger scale the Roman invasion of Gaul
(which consisted essentially of present-day France, Belgium,
and Germany and the Netherlands west of the Rhine River)
under Julius Caesar in 58–51 b.c.e. brought widespread de-
struction of villages and towns. Many communities were
wiped out. As a large number of those killed were men, many
groups lacked the ability to collect the harvests, leading to
collapse of their societies, with the result that Gaul remained
the most quiescent of Roman provinces until the fall of Rome
itself in the fi ft h century c.e. Similarly, military campaigns
in Spain as part of a Roman civil war despoiled some of the
country in 46–45 b.c.e. Th e civil war, which pitted Caesar
against other powerful Romans and their armies, led to the
destruction, temporarily, of many other cities across Ro-
man-held territory, such as Massilia (modern-day Marseilles,
France).In Germany the Romans managed to seize the lands west
of the Rhine, but even in the areas they did not control the
Roman legions destroyed much of the infrastructure. In 9
c.e. the campaigns of the Germanic tribal leader Armin (“Ar-
minius” to the Romans) and the Roman commander Varus
spread mass destruction, though Armin and his forces all but
annihilated three Roman legions at the battle of the Teuto-
burg Forest. Fighting continued for the next four years and
then recurred sporadically from 17 until about 200 c.e.
In eastern Europe fi ghting between the Romans and such
peoples as the Dacians and the Goths and later wars with the
Bulgars led to the abandonment of many inland settlements,
but a number of coastal ones remained, suggesting that the
more isolated places were perhaps harder to defend and the
coastal ones more easily reinforced or rebuilt. Certainly in Ro-
man Britain, when the cities of Camulodunum (Colchester),
Londinium (London), and Verulamium (Saint Albans) were
destroyed during the revolt of the Iceni under Queen Bou-
dicca in 60 c.e., the three cities were easily rebuilt on the same
foundations; archaeologists have found a layer of ash in many
places representing the destruction. Other cities fl ourished
under the Romans but aft er the fall of the Western Roman
Empire in 476 c.e. never regained their former wealth and
size. Although most Roman cities have been built over and
massively enlarged in the last 2,000 years, there are still some,
such as Cirencester (Roman Corinium) in England, where the
old city walls extend well beyond the current size of the town.GREECE
BY SPYROS S. SIROPOULOS
Greece had never been a rich country. Small-scale agricul-
ture, including the cultivation of olive trees, along with an-
imal keeping and fi shing were the basis of its population’s
nutrition. Th e scarce natural resources were balanced by a
favorable climate that allowed the Greeks to remain outdoors
for most of the year to cultivate the earth and to engage in
trade and seafaring. To make most of the natural resources,
large parts of the country’s population did not inhabit the fa-
mous civic centers of antiquity but instead lived permanently
in the countryside. In a typical city-state the polis, or city,
was the decision-making center; a relatively small agricul-
tural area called the chóra lay outside the polis and included
a number of smaller settlements called kómai. A fi ne balance
was formed between the city and the kómai: Th e civic way
of life and the stability and growth of the civic community
were sustained and secured by the provisions from the agri-
cultural settlements.
Th is delicate balance could easily be upset in the ancient
world. Th e mass desertion of rural settlements, with all the
catastrophic repercussions for neighboring cities, could oc-
cur for various reasons, including natural causes, economic
or political causes, and war.
Because people depended upon the climate to produce
the maximum of the land’s potential, any unpredicted natu-social collapse and abandonment: Greece 10050895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1005 1005 10/10/07 2:30:44 PM