Europe Between the Oceans: Themes and Variations, 9000 BC - AD 1000

by Barry Cunliffe

In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe’s great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange. The development of these early Europeans is rooted in complex interplays, shifting balances, and geographic and demographic fluidity.

Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and history, Cunliffe has produced an interdisciplinary tour de force. His is a bold book of exceptional scholarship, erudite and engaging, and it heralds an entirely new understanding of Old Europe.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Ancient History, Prehistory, European History, Anthropology

528 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2008

About the author

Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe taught archaeology in the Universities of Bristol and Southampton and was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2008, thereafter becoming Emeritus Professor. He has excavated widely in Britain (Fishbourne, Bath, Danebury, Hengistbury Head, Brading) and in the Channel Islands, Brittany, and Spain, and has been President of the Council for British Archaeology and of the Society of Antiquaries, Governor of the Museum of London, and a Trustee of the British Museum. He is currently a Commissioner of English Heritage.

Reviews

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently, the British have an unlimited supply of prominent archaeologists, and Barry Cunliffe (° 1939) undoubtedly is one of them. Cunliffe was a professor at Oxford and has since published on the Celts and Scythians, two peoples on the fringes of what used to be colloquially known as the ‘civilized world’. This focus is also illustrated in this book, as Cunliffe mainly zooms in on ‘barbaric’ Europe. He does this on purpose, because he wants to demonstrate that cultures developed in these so-called non-civilized areas must not be underestimated and formed an entangled network with more prominent areas as Greece and Rome.

Cunliffe has put together an unlikely amount of information in this book, resulting in a very dense yet readable text. Especially for the period from 1500 to 100 BCE, there is a lot of information in it that I did not know yet. The strength of this book are not only the numerous illustrations, but especially the exceptional map material, apparently specially developed for this book (although not all maps are equally relevant). Still, I don't think this work is a complete success: in his encyclopedic zeal, Cunliffe regularly can be caught on errors of detail, and especially at the end he loses overview and the book gets bogged down in a succession of names and dates. I also have an issue with the strange chronological delineation of the book (especially that he lets it run until the year AD 1000), with a certain teleological slant (the later 'greatness' of Europe was already apparent before the 11th-12th century), and with a distinctly Eurocentric look. For those comments, see my review in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[WarpDrive · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good-quality, very informative book written by a distinguished archeologist; it is a scholarly work competently combining archaeology with historiography, ambitious in scope and rich with detail (considering its breadth in time and space).

It provides fresh, very interesting insights into trading and cultural networks West of the Urals, as supported by archeological evidence and primary sources. It also ties the European prehistoric and proto-historic worlds to the historic period in intriguing ways, convincingly explaining the continuities between the periods.

The author goes beyond the standard narrative of "Mesopotamia + Egypt, then Greece then Rome", to explore, for example, the remarkable achievements and level of civilization demonstrated by the nomadic peoples of the steppe (such as the "Scythians", Sarmatians etc.) and by the so-called "barbarian regions" of the Baltic, of the Atlantic coast of Europe, and of Iberia (all areas where extensive trading networks and cultural sophistication are visible even in proto-historical times). There are, for example, amazing masterpieces of "Scythian" workmanship dating back to the 6th century BC that are quite impressive. The masterpieces created by "Thracian" craftsmen in the 4th century BC are also very impressive for their beauty and sophistication.
The degree of sophistication achieved by some of the Iberian polities before the 4th century BC (with towns, coinage, an Iberian script, and ordered state system) is also remarkable and producing a beautiful and highly distinctive form of art.

I loved that the author puts some emphasis on the so-called "periphery" areas, such as the north Pontic colonies of the Black Sea, which saw a fascinating interlacing of multiple civilizations, rather than just focusing on the "central" areas.

The book also provides, with very interesting detail and convincing supporting evidence, a good overview of the expansive cultural and trading relationship between the North / Central European world and the Mediterranean world, evident well before Greece and Rome. I was also pleased to see a treatment of the Mycenaean and Cypriot involvement in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which happened well before the subsequent Greek expansion in Southern Italy and Sicily.

The author is very good at explaining in detail how geographical and climatic factors played a significant role in the development of trading networks, in the movement and settlement of populations, and in the type of economy developed locally. There is, for example, a very convincing explanation of the reasons why some specific areas in Europe such as the Carpathian basin played such a crucial part in the migration and settlement of nomadic peoples from the steppe.

It must also be said that the author does not fall into the trap of treating each of these ancient civilizations as a "monolith" - the author is very good at providing a nuanced account of the complex origin and development, and cultural cross-fertilizations, of even the most "remote civilizations" like the ones in the Scandinavian peninsula - it is surprising how the trading and cultural relationships of the Scandinavian/Baltic region extended across a large area well before the so-called "Viking era".

The book is also well supported by many, good quality, relevant and detailed maps, with only few and minor inaccuracies. The bibliography is quite good too.

On the negative side, there is only one major issue: the last chapters (the ones dealing with Roman History onwards) are quite hurried and there are a few inaccuracies. You can see that, while the author is very strong in archeology-supported European history up to the rise of Imperial Rome, after this period his knowledge (and the quality of the book) somewhat deteriorate.
I would also have loved some more detail about the Celtic culture/civilization, which is treated in a somewhat cursory manner.

It must also be noted that the focus of the book is not on military/political developments, which the author assumes the reader is already knowledgeable about. The focus on detailed archeological records is quite strong (which is not surprising, given the background of the author).

Overall, I would rate it a good 4-star book, worth reading especially if you are after a perspective slightly different to the usual history books.

[Sense of History]

This history of Europe from 9,000 BCE to AD 1000 (10 millennia!) has, at first glance, a strange chronological delineation. Barry Cunliffe, a prominent British archaeologist, explains his choice in his introduction. He starts from a relatively popular theme in the historiography of the last decades: the 'Great Divergence', namely the observation that in the second half of the second millennium Europe succeeded in dominating the world, politically-militarily, economically and culturally. Numerous works have already been written to explain this (and to put it into perspective), resulting in an endless but very interesting debate. Cunliffe wants to focus in this book on “the formative tenthousand years before that”, suggesting that the explanation for that European dominance simply stems from the dynamics of European history prior to the ‘glory period’. It is a form of historicism that you would no longer consider possible today. And it is also strange that an archaeologist should venture into this.

Cunliffe's archaeological specialization is evident in the first half of the book, in which he covers the period from 9000 BCE to about 500 BCE. That makes sense, since we only have a limited number of written sources for that period. The author presents a wealth of information that provides a fascinating picture of the impressive evolution the European continent underwent during this period. Above all, he adjusts the image of an area where hardly anything happened, compared to the 'shining' examples from the Near East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc). Occasionally the views expressed in this book are dated, because it was written before the revolutionary new insights that are now emerging from paleo-genetics. And for the period before the Bronze Age (roughly before 1500 BCE) Cunliffe occasionally ventures into minor errors. But striking and interesting is the attention he gives to maritime archeology (throughout the book, by the way) and to developments in the far east of Europe, especially the steppe area north of the Black Sea.

In the ensuing period, between 500 BCE and 200 AD, Cunliffe cannot but include the great civilizations around the Mediterranean (Greece and Rome), in his story. Here he sketches very cleverly how quickly the "civilized" and the "barbarian" areas became mutually dependent on each other, and how the networks that existed before that time began to play a crucial role in that exchange. Hellas and Rome are inconceivable without the Atlantic, Western, Central and Eastern European cultures, and vice versa. Unfortunately, Cunliffe's story then gets bogged down in a feeble attempt to demonstrate that this interaction continued to be decisive afterwards: because of the speed with which he deals with the period between AD 200 and AD 1000, his story takes on a very teleological slant, showing how the European web - of course in an adapted form - continued to survive and laid the foundation for its world-determining role afterwards.

This illustrates a form of Eurocentrism. I do not mean that Cunliffe’s view is not broad enough: he does include the Near East and the Central Asian steppe region in his story. But it is above all his implicit conclusion that is shocking: Cunliffe gives the impression that the complex, interactive network was unique to Europe and that this explains its later dynamics. Quod non, or rather, perhaps necessary but not sufficient. Because the same story can be perfectly set up for, for example, the Chinese web, or the Central Asian-Middle Eastern web. There, too, there was a complex interaction between more developed and less developed areas that nourished and stimulated each other. Cunliffe's main thesis, outlining the basis for the European success story in the 2nd millennium AD, can therefore be called questionable, and not really convincing. But he does succeed in highlighting the interconnectedness of that 'civilized' and 'barbaric' world, specifically for the European realm. That makes this book worthwhile, with all the caution that goes with it.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw this book at the library, it seemed to shout “textbook.” Something about its size and heft, its glossy paper and 500 page length, made me think it was the kind of book an anthropology class would require students to spend $150 on. As I leafed through it, still doubtful, what caught my eye were the lavish full color illustrations and detailed maps. There seemed to be a photograph or map on almost every page. I then read some samples of the text and decided it was worth checking out.

It turned out to be well worth reading, an expansive and well researched look into early European civilizations, from the Mesolithic until 1000 AD, when the modern states we know today were beginning to take shape. Although the histories of Greece and Rome are covered, as well as a glancing appreciation of the civilizations farther east, it focuses, as its name suggests, on the land between the waters of the Atlantic, Baltic, and Mediterranean.

In 9000 BC the early hunter-gatherers were moving north, following the retreating glaciers. The warming climate was not, as might be supposed, a boon to humankind, and instead caused a catastrophic population collapse. The reason was that the ice age tundra was home to vast herds of reindeer and other mammals but as the climate warmed the tundra was replaced by dense forest, which supported far fewer game animals, and thus far smaller numbers of humans.

The book emphasizes the connections between geography, climate, and history. In the northern Levant, around 9000 BC, the conditions were favorable for farming and pasturing societies to form, which caused a rapid expansion in population, part of which expanded north-westward into Europe. Modern DNA analysis has shown that the existing hunter-gathering peoples gradually merged into the farmer population rather than being exterminated by them.

Even in prehistoric Europe the extensive system of coastal ports and navigable rivers facilitated trade, and there were highly sophisticated trading networks that moved goods over long distances. The author’s position is that this was not true trade as we know it today, but prestige transactions designed to sustain alliances and gain influence. Considering how far back in time it was, it is amazing that grave goods sometimes contain items that had come from as far away as the Black Sea and beyond.

The narrative moves to the Mediterranean, discussing the Minoans and the Micenaeans and the slow rise of Greek civilization. Although they had no way of calculating longitude, ships could navigate by latitude, sailing with the winds and currents in a Great Circle line all the way to Spain. Colonies proliferated, from the Black Sea to North Africa, to what would one day be Italy, Sicily, France, and Spain. The age of Greek dominance, however, was soon to end. They could never advance their governance beyond the city state, and the age of empires was at hand. The Persians, the Carthaginians, the Etruscans all left their marks, and finally, the one empire to rule them all, the Romans.

For approximately four hundred years there was stability around the Mediterranean basin and north as far as Britain. Standardized laws, coinage, and weights and measures caused trade to expand beyond anything the world had ever seen. Goods traveled from every corner of the Roman empire, as well as the far east, Russia, Scandinavia, and the vast plains of Hungary. Furs, wine, ceramics, weapons, raw materials, and luxury goods flowed in all directions, but the main commodity which sustained the trade routes was slaves. The Empire had an insatiable need for cheap labor, and was prepared to negotiate with anyone to get it. Initially they came in vast numbers from Syria, Palestine, and Greece, then the primary markets shifted to the Black Sea perimeter, and finally, in seemingly endless numbers, from Gaul and Germania, where constant raids and warfare kept supply equal to demand.

In the end, however, the Roman empire was unsustainable and started to break apart. The author emphasizes what he calls the longue durée, the big picture overview of European history. From that perspective the stability of the Empire was a historical anomaly, a brief period of militarily enforced pax Romana before the societies reverted to their historic forms of leadership and commerce.

The Barbarians were unstoppable. In the north, population growth led the Goths, Celts, and numerous Germanic tribes to strike out from their traditional homelands, causing the Roman empire to contract, appease the invaders by offering them land and citizenship privileges, and finally collapse under their growing pressure. From the east came additional hordes, including the Huns and the Avars. The great swath of steppe grasslands extended for three thousand miles from western China to Hungary, a virtual highway to take migrating tribes into the heart of Europe. Finally, the Islamic tide swept across the southern Empire, conquering Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. The Western Roman empire was no more, and the rulers in Constantinople withdrew to the east to defend as much of their remaining territory as possible.

Eventually the tribes turned from invaders to settlers, and as the book ends the outlines of modern Europe were starting to take shape. Charlemagne’s sons and grandsons repeatedly divided his empire, warred against each other, and gradually carved out recognizable nation states. As always, trade found a way, although in much reduced scope as much of the former Roman empire was now almost lawless, and local control was exercised by petty bandit princelings. To add to this chaos the Northmen swept out of Norway, Denmark, and Saxony, ravaging and pillaging the coastal settlements, and far inland as well, with regular raids as far south as Spain.

As the book ends it is hard to imagine how Europe managed to survive the repeated onslaughts of Vikings from the north, Muslim expansion from the south, and barbarian invaders from the east. Added to their woes was a Papacy which was filled with petty thieves willing to sacrifice any vision of Christian unity for their own ignoble goals. For readers wishing to continue the story of Europe I would recommend Paul Collins’ Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century

I enjoyed Europe Between the Oceans. It is well researched and written, lavishly illustrated, and manages to tie together the main themes of European history in an insightful manner. Recommended.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad this book exists--it fills a much unwanted gap, inasmuch as it's a reasonably approachable introduction to prehistoric Europe and the way it developed into historical Europe. For the first few chapters I was riveted. For the middle half dozen, I was aflame with the thirst for knowledge: Cunliffe describes thousands of years worth of broad historical trends in a fascinating way, never downplaying the difficulty of actually knowing about the distant past, and somehow manages to make archaeology-based economic history fascinating.

Perversely, once he gets to the 'easy' stuff (i.e., the Greeks and after), the book becomes as insipid as dishwater. I suppose if you know nothing about ancient, late ancient and early medieval Europe you'll learn a few things, but it's hard to believe that anyone would pick this up unless they knew something about early historical periods. All the interesting stuff is replaced by thumbnail sketches of battles and kings and so on, which is all well and good, but much better done by others. Had Cunliffe stuck to prehistory, this would have been amazing. As it is, the last quarter is a real let down.

Also, if you're going to orient everything to rivers, you should include an easily accessible map that plainly names all of those rivers. It's my fault for not knowing the geography of Europe well enough, I suppose, but it's still frustrating to be told that so and so did such and such at between the Danube and Don and to have literally no idea what that might mean.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thus, humanity emerges willing to be mobile and forced to be sociable.

Cunliffe delivers a spectacular narrative about a Europe gradually in a fits and starts evolving into coexistence. Citing Braudel at every turn, he does plumb beneath events and individuals to the currents and tensions which complicate and motivate.

His approach is archaeological and thus burial sites and shipwrecks are nodes of attention. He extrapolates outwards, always hesitant. Perhaps there’s much more to the process, linguistics would appear to indicate such and I’m not sure where DNA will take the scholarship as the latest Viking theory by Jarman has ruffled feathers. Perhaps the example of cognitive maps offered by Cunliffe is an apt portal for such gazing?

I loved this book despite its heft and am glad I made the two day effort.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't understand why this is built like a textbook.
I don't understand why Cunliffe kept referring (three times!) to mountains as the "backbone" of a continent.
In fact I don't understand all the weird humanization of geography especially at the beginning of the book. "where the outlying flanks of the Carpathian Mountains attempt to link to the dying remains of the Alps." Bear in mind this is only a sub-clause in a sentence about the river Danube "negotiating" its way to the sea.
In fact I don't like any of the language in this book, most notably the emphatic adverbs. Something is never abundant; it is always quite abundant. He never says there is enough evidence for something, but he will say there is ample evidence. A settlement is never established, always well established. There is never more emphasis but much greater emphasis. Firmly placed, very much so, highly likely, high prestige, strongly fortified, and those are only the ones I jotted down.
I don't like how he talks about Iberia on the Atlantic and Iberia on the Black Sea without specifying which he means.
I appreciate that he tries to get away from the classical history of focusing solely on the Mediterranean but then I don't understand why he refers to northern europe during that time as the "still mysterious hinterland". Surely it wasn't mysterious to the people living there at the time so I don't get why the flowery language.
I don't understand why Roman occupation of greater Europe is called "settling" while the Muslim empire's occupation is called an "alien force."
I just don't like the man's reasoning. Some of the arguments are great. Like when he explains how you know that some settlements were used by different groups or were seasonal as opposed to being inhabited constantly. "Demonstrating the abandonment of a site is not always easy but one convenient indicator of human absence is the colonization of the shelter by the endemic small eagle owl (Bubo insularis) whose pellets form a distinct layer. Such are the intricacies of archaeological interpretation."
Well, I guess what I want is more intricacies of archaeological interpretation. I'd love to know what exactly the criteria are for determining whether the spread of certain behaviors and artifacts is based on the spread of culture or the spread of a population. In one case Cunliffe decides that the spread of a certain type of pottery is too fast to be driven by migration or integration of one group into others and therefore it must be a cultural spread. But then later a remarkably fast spread of a certain cultural practice is explained by the original group's "pioneer ethic" and thin-air suppositions about rites of passage for young men of trekking three days journey away to set up their own settlement.
I'd love to know why "If grave goods indicate status, then the evidence from Skateholm and elsewhere implies that some level of social inequality was present" but in Ireland and places where there are no grave goods it indicates not that there was not social inequality but that goods were sacrificed to the bog rather than being buried with bodies. Because Cunliffe has basically made up his mind beforehand.
I understand that history is murky and there's not always the evidence to make solid claims, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of rigor here.

[Dimitrios Diamantaras · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, so excellent. This book goes on the top of the list of books I'm currently reading. It is a wonderfully concise and engaging, and yet magisterial and wide-ranging, history of Europe from the long perspective (about 10000 BC to 1000 AD).

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Europe dominated the world during the course of the second millennium CE, this domination came in the form of arts and sciences. The influence of Europe came from the mobility of its people. It only took a few centuries for the world to come under the influence of European culture.

This book doesn’t look at this time in European history but rather at the time it took to get there. The book looks at the period of history (and pre-history) from 9000 BCE to the end of the first millennium CE, at the time when the states of Europe familiar to us today began to emerge.

The author is emphasizing the fact that geography of the European peninsula had a huge effect on the way human population there developed. He also emphasizes the human factor; how competitive and curious they are and yet they are also conservative. He also discusses the interactions of the different human groups with their environment and each other.

In chapter one the author lays the foundation for his book by explaining the concepts of space, time and human interaction from the point of view of archeologists and historians as well as geographers through time. The author uses archeology, classical texts, dendrochronology, and weather as his resources for this book.

I think the beauty of this book is in the fact that it is written in a way that anyone picking it up will benefit from it. Whether you were a historian, archeologist, scientist or just someone interested in Europe there is something in there for every one. You don't just know the history you also know the WHY of it. Its a must read for anyone researching European history. What I value the most about this book is the abundant maps that help you visualize what the author is talking about and the further reading section at the end of the book. I absolutely enjoyed reading this book slowly and savoring all the information presented in it.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. Cunliffe places the history of Europe (and the Mediterranean) in perspective, and his perspective is the very long view, from 9000 BC to 1000 AD.

This book is worth reading for three different purposes. First, if you want a framework for classical and European history, read the first chapter (on the geography of Europe) and the opening and closing sections of each chapter, and you have an instant framework on which to hang anything else.

Second, if you want to understand the history of this part of the world as driven by economic, geographic, and demographic factors, this is perfect. Repeatedly, Cunliffe acknowledges that ancient (and modern) historians have discussed the visions and choices of individual great leaders - but Cunliffe argues that, for the most part, these figures were borne along on the tides of demographic and cultural evolution well beyond their control. But better than simply arguing that, he makes it comprehensible, drawing on up to date archeological information as well as the scarce written records we have from the last two millennia of the ten he covers.

Finally, these ten thousand years are filled with fascinating cultures with a wide variety of diets, settlement patterns, social structures, religious systems, natural resources, and interactions with one another. Reading the book is like looking through a kaleidoscope, watching patterns form, fall apart, and reassemble - but with the added benefit that the annotated bibliography, and the keywords supplied in the text, serve as excellent jumping off points to explore whichever cultures or locations catch your attention in more detail. I found the maps very helpful as well - there are lots of them, and they are well labelled.

It took me a year to get all the way through this book (interrupted with other books along the way), and it was so worth it.

[David Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for a big picture introduction to European history, prior to the well documented last 1000 years, then this is your book.

It is particularly good at emphasising how recent the "historical" past is compared the broad stretch of actual human history.

Clear, simple, well-written, consistent, and fair - a joy to read, one of those books that reminds you that genius is often clarity of vision, the ability to see simple patterns among a mass of confusing detail.

[Richard Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve long been interested in learning more about my wild ancestors, the indigenous hunter-gatherers of Europe, in order to better understand who I am. Descriptions of them recorded by the ancient Greeks and Romans were too meager to satisfy my curiosity. Recently, I came across Barry Cunliffe’s book, Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC – AD 1000. Cunliffe is an archaeologist, and ongoing research is discovering many new pieces for the puzzle. His book serves readers a staggering amount of information.

Cave paintings have preserved beautiful memories of the wild paradise of ice age Europe, and the lucky people who enjoyed the continent in the days of its undiminished vitality. The party began breaking up around 9600 B.C., when a warmer climate returned. Glaciers melted and forests expanded northward into tundra country. Tundra critters like the reindeer and elk were forced to migrate further north. Others, like the mammoth and wooly rhino, walked off the stage.

The recovering forests provided habitat for smaller animals, like deer, elk, boars, and aurochs. Here’s a surprising notion: “This forest fauna amounted to only about 20-30 percent of the total biomass of herbivores that had roamed the tundra before them.” In a land of trees, there was far less meat nibbling on the foliage. Folks were forced to live in smaller and fewer settlements. Their population “drastically declined.” They preferred locations close to coastlines, lakes, rivers, and wetlands, where a year round supply of food could be gathered with little effort.

Meanwhile, over the border in Asia, dark juju was swirling in the Fertile Crescent. Between 12,000 and 9600 B.C., the number of permanent settlements was growing, based on hunting and foraging the (temporarily) abundant wild foods. Then came the ominous Aceramic Neolithic period (9600 – 6900 B.C.). By its end, people were growing fully domesticated cereals, and dining on domesticated sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle. Cunliffe blames population issues for this shift, which has yet to stop clobbering the planet via seven billion unintended consequences.

The laborious new way of life worked for a while in Asia, but turned into a nightmare when supersized — large-scale irrigation-based agriculture, reckless forest mining, explosive population growth, bloody warfare, and full-blown civilizations run by power-crazy tyrants awash in testosterone. Few civilizations, if any, have ever managed to reverse their mistake and deliberately return to low impact living. Most self-destruct. It’s easier.

Geography has played a starring role in European history. The continent is a lumpy peninsula protruding from the posterior of Asia. It is largely surrounded by navigable seas, and interlaced with navigable rivers. Even in the days before roads, it was fairly easy to journey back and forth across it. The continent had immense forests, fertile soils, a nurturing climate, plenty of water, thriving wildlife and marine life, and large deposits of industrial minerals and precious minerals.

The Fertile Crescent, on the other hand, was an arid region that was poorly suited for supporting large complex societies. But to the west was a vast unmolested paradise, and there were few guards at the border crossings to Europe. Consequently, the wild hunter-gatherers of Europe were among the unluckiest people in the world, similar to the Native Americans in 1492. Their valuable assets were irresistible to the growing mobs of hungry farmers.

Cunliffe euthanized the myth of the Neolithic Revolution, which purported that the Asian farmers swept across Europe in a blitzkrieg, nearly exterminating the indigenous folk, as the white folks did in America. New evidence suggests that diffusion played a significant role in the spread of agriculture, similar to the spread of maize in the eastern U.S. Whenever the folks down the river start growing lots of calories, and feeding swarms of bambinos, your options are: (1) exterminate them, (2) take up the dirty habit, (3) flee, or (4) be overrun. Since farmers outbreed hunters, agriculture tends to spread like a steamroller.

Recent studies of mitochondrial DNA conclude that about 80 percent of European females are genetically indigenous, not related to Asian immigrants. In France, Germany, and northeast Spain, only 15 to 30 percent of males have immigrant genes.

In a nutshell, Europe was essentially a continent of hunter-gatherers in 7000 B.C., and by 4000 B.C. it was reduced to a sad gulag of farmers and herders. “The rapidity of the spread of the Neolithic way of life was remarkable.” According to Cunliffe, wild Europe disintegrated in the face of increased mobility, connectivity, innovation, and imbalance.

Mobility was stimulated by factors such as growing population, depleted soils, overgrazing, and bloodthirsty invaders. Connectivity was increased as trading networks expanded, often leading to tribal alliances led by cocky warlords. Innovation was the clever process of devising new ways for living farther out of balance with nature, a tireless war on the future. The Neolithic path was a devastating hurricane of countless forms of imbalance — population, hierarchy, warfare, technology, ecology, pathology.

Friendly traders who made it through the gauntlet of pirates and highwaymen delivered wine, weapons, jewelry, furs, smallpox, and the bubonic plague. Diseases delighted in paying regular visits to the filthy, malnourished communities, and providing much needed assistance in resolving family planning imbalances. Slave trading was a major industry.

In central Asia and southern Russia, ancestors of the Aryans hunted the fierce wild horses of the grassy steppes and ate them. Over time, they succeeded in reducing them to submissive beasts, and used them for hunting, herding, trading, and raiding — another brilliant innovation! Before long, Europeans on the plains were periodically being raped, pillaged, and slaughtered by scruffy hordes of horse-mounted Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, and Turks.

Equally catastrophic was the dark art of metalworking, another diabolical gift from the Middle East. The Bronze Age began around 3300 B.C., and the Iron Age arrived around 1200 B.C. The awesome new technology resulted in the deaths of millions of trees and people, and the permanent destruction of many mining regions.

Conflict was the core of the story. Every page I turned unleashed a thousand screams, as jets of hot blood squirted out of the book, forming a sticky puddle around my desk, page after page. They never tired of killing each other. This psychic epidemic — “grow or die” — has now driven us deep into the valley of the shadow of extinction. It’s a game we can neither win nor deliberately abandon. Everyone loses.

Native Americans have always been appalled by the immense craziness of the Europeans who washed up on their shores. Ward Churchill says that we suffer from a profound sense of identity confusion, having lost all connection to our tribal roots. John Trudell says we have become disconnected from spiritual reality. We have lost our identity and need to remember who we are. The cave paintings are the strongest medicine we have, along with our dreams.

Cunliffe’s 10,000-year tour tells us almost nothing about tribal Europeans living in relative harmony with the ecosystem, but it exhaustively describes the birth of disharmony, which is useful to understand. Many of the important lessons in life are learned from goofy unclever teachers who demonstrate the wrong way to do something, and the Neolithic Europeans excelled at this, as did their descendants around the world.

They weren’t stupid or evil. It’s nearly impossible to intentionally stop or turn a complex society that’s in motion. They were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had little choice but to be swept away by the roaring currents of their era, as we have been. But calmer waters lie downstream, and some folks may survive the journey. May they learn well from our mistakes, let the planet heal, and remember who they are.

[Wilmington · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a quick summary of European prehistory, ancient and early medieval history. I bought it chiefly for the prehistoric section (two thirds of the book). It is very readable and well illustrated, but so basic that it reminded me of a secondary school textbook (although a nice one). I didn't learn much. I was annoyed by the fact that Barry Cunliffe speculates a lot and gives his personal opinion everywhere, but not enough archaeological data that would allow the reader to draw his own conclusions. Archaeological periods are usually mentioned without starting and ending dates, which I find unacceptable.

The first three chapters (86 pages) are not about history or archaeology, but consist of a boring description of European geography and geology. There is very little about the central European and Italian Bronze Age; only to sentences about the Unetice culture and not a single mention of the Tumulus culture (1600-1200 BCE), nor of the Terramare culture (1700-1150 BCE), two essential periods to understand the development of Celtic and Italic cultures. There is very little on north-eastern Europe as well.

For a book specifically about European (pre)history, I found that there was an undue emphasis on the Near East (Anatolia, Levant, Egypt) and much too little about Europe beyond Greece, Italy and the Balkans.

Cunliffe keep insisting that no major migration took place between the Pontic steppes and the rest of Europe, despite overwhelming genetic evidence to the contrary. He claims that Indo-European languages came with Neolithic farmers from Anatolia (p.137). This goes against all linguistic studies that date the split of Indo-European languages to 4000-3000 BCE from their Pontic steppe homeland, much later than the spread of agriculture to Europe (7000-5000 BCE). Archaeological evidence confirms that bronze technology, horse-riding, single graves and the rise of patrilinear hierarchical societies all originated in the Eurasian steppes, and moved progressively westward until reaching the Atlantic coast of Europe. Cunliffe reports all this in the book, but repeats obstinately that all this change happened without substantial migration.

On pages 99-101 and 111, the author argues that the Neolithic Greek and Balkanic populations descended directly from the Mesolithic population, and not from Near-Eastern immigrants. How could Indo-European languages spread with agriculture (as he believes) without a migration of population ? In fact, Cunliffe's claim has been completely disproved by DNA studies as well. The Balkans and Greece are much closer genetically to Anatolia and the Levant than to the rest of Europe. This much was clear beyond reasonable doubt when the book was written in 2007.

Barry Cunliffe even argues that the Etruscans did not have any Near Eastern origins. On p. 250, talking about the rise of the Etruscan civilization, he pompously and wrongfully declares that "it is now generally accepted that development was continuous with no influxes of new people". Not only is it not generally accepted, but once again DNA tests have confirmed a Near-Eastern origin both for modern and ancient Tuscans, but also for cattle lineages found in Tuscany today.

The author's dogged refusal to admit a spread of Proto-Celtic people, culture and language from central to western Europe has for consequence that his view of Bronze Age Europe is flawed from the start. On pp. 254-258, he is amazed at the similarity of weapons and feasting gears in Iberia, France, Britain and Ireland in the period 1200 to 800 BCE, and attempts to explain it simply by the existence of maritime networks. It does not ocur to him that this Proto-Celtic culture might have sprung from a common source. Maritime networks don't explain the presence of the same objects inland, far from the coasts. He also does the unforgivable mistake of illustrating the late Western European Bronze Age with a map of P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages based on the earliest Roman accounts of Celtic languages dating from over 1000 years later ! It is unlikely that the P vs Q split had already occurred around 1000 BCE. How can a serious historian make such a basic anachronism ?

Without trying to nitpick, I noted that some dates were quite inconsistent in different parts of the book. For instance, on p.95 Cunliffe writes that farming reached Crete from Anatolia in 7000 BC, but on p.174 it is 6000 BCE. One thousand years is a long time for such an imprecision.

The next criticism focuses on the author's unrepenting Anglo-centrism. On p.181 he claims that "the earliest appearance of regular bronze-using economy is to be found in Britain and Ireland in the period 2200-2000 BC, after which it spread eastwards and southwards through Europe". The reality is quite different. The Bronze Age started in the Near East, Caucasus and Pontic steppe from 3500 BC, then spread to the Carpathians, Balkans and Greece around 3000-2500 BC, then Central Europe around 2300 BC, and only reached the Atlantic fringe around 2200-2000 BC. I don't know who is is fooling writing that it spread the other way round.

Along the same vein I was shocked to read this passage on p.28 : "At a simple level it would be possible to see the Mediterranean world - a centre of innovation from the third millennium BC - as a core for which the rest of Europe served as periphery. There is a degree of validity in this generalization. Extending the argument, one could say that things only began to change in the seventh and eighth centuries AD when the focus of innovation started to shift to the Atlantic fringes of Europe, where it remained until the end of the nineteenth century." What is he saying is that the Atlantic coast of Europe (the British Isles and western France and Iberia) led scientific/technological innovation in Europe from the early Middle Ages. This is just absurd. During the medieval period it was first the Byzantine Empire then Italy then progressively France and Germany that led innovation. Britain really started influencing the rest of Europe from the late 17th and early 18th century onwards, but along with France, Germany and Austro-Hungary. In France, new ideas came from Paris or eastern France, rarely western France. Iberia hardly led Europe through its scientific innovations, mostly because of the oppressing religious climate under the Inquisition.

Cunliffe speculates (e.g. p.139) that the Western European seafaring tradition and the social prestige attached to exploring unknown territories and colonizing them have their roots in the spread of farming during the Neolithic. In other words, he is suggesting that the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and British colonialism can be explained by what people did 6000 to 8000 years ago ! I am not going to list all the aberrations contained in this book, but you will understand why I only grant it two stars. I won't give it only one star because the writing style is pleasant and the illustrations are nice.

UPDATE January 2016
------------------

I posted this review six years ago. Since then ancient DNA tests have proven that the Proto-Celts (and other Indo-Europeans) migrated from the Pontic Steppe of Russia to Central Europe and then to Western Europe, and not the other way round as Barry Cunliffe wrote. Haplogroup R1b, the main paternal lineage of the British Isles today, was shown to have originated in the Yamna culture of southern Russia 5500 years ago, then have spread to central Europe around 4500 years ago and finally to have reached Ireland 4000 years ago (Cassidy et al. 2015). This is a grave mistake that I think discredit all of Barry Cunliffe's work.

[Konstantin Petrov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bok som ger en en väldigt bra överblick om hur Europa befolkades

[Victor Sonkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of Europe's 10,000 years is by definition a grand undertaking. Who better equipped for it than Barry Cunliffe, one of the continent's most publicized, prolific and articulate archaeologists? The result is a beautiful good-looking volume with as many disappointments as delights.

One of the major disappointments has nothing to do with the author's skill or manner. It's the sheer disappointment of coming to terms with how little we know about prehistory, and, before the advent of time travel, how immutable that situation is. The archaeologist's metier is sadly all conjecture and guesswork; all the more so in a popular book like this one.

When the narrative switches to historic time, it's still a very long era (about 6,000 years or so), and any selection of historical material to narrate is almost arbitrary; some of the details are skimpy, some dubious, some plainly wrong - though not many.

The inadequacy of information about our distant past leads to conjectures completely unfounded in anything except the author's bias. This is not a criticism; I guess nobody could have avoided this. But there's a peculiar British susceptibility to modern propaganda in some of the author's passages. After a lengthy description of huge and often devastating impacts climate change had had on our ancestors, he concludes that "humans have now, for the first time, begun to have a direct, and potentially devastating, effect on the all-controlling climate." I am not saying that no climate change is taking place (it is, actually, way too early to tell), but there's certainly a huge contradiction in comparing the real climate cataclysms of the past (even the rather recent past) and the possible climate change of today; saying that today's more dangerous is certainly not founded in any evidence, as Cunliffe's book demonstrates elsewhere.

Finally, for a book so beautifully printed on such fine paper, the quality of most maps is surprising. The colors on the maps themselves often have nothing to do with the colors in the legend, so it's really not possible to understand what the map says. The number of misspelled place names and different conventions used on the same map (like lumping together ancient and modern names, London with Lutetia) is through the roof. One would have expected higher editorial standards from Yale University Press.

To conclude, I have always badly wanted to read a book about Europe's (pre)history of the period, and I still do: "Europe Between the Oceans" has not satisfied my wish. But in the absence of a better popular introduction, this account by a qualified professional is certainly much better than nothing.

[Alex Telander · Rating 4 out of 5]

EUROPE BETWEEN THE OCEANS: 9000 BC – AD 1000 BY BARRY CUNLIFFE: Barry Cunliffe, a leading archaeologist, and emeritus professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, presents his next epic tome that will delight archaeology readers and scientists alike. Europe Between the Oceans takes one on a long and fascinating journey into our deep past, beginning with the ancient when humanity was split into nomadic groups and first began changing their sedentary ways, to the end of the first millennium when the world was a very different place.

Beginning with a few chapters to set the stage, Cunliffe explains the unique setting of the Eurasian continent with its consolidated landmass being surrounded by so much water with its various lakes, seas, bays, and oceans, as well as its convoluted shaping, offering an extensive coastline. Along with plenty of maps, diagrams, and photos, he also explains the extensive river network that exists and existed in Europe and how this has change over time. With this solid foundation in the water systems of the continent, Cunliffe begins his thorough history lesson, starting at 9000 BC and the ancient peoples who were just beginning to settle down and develop technology, after having barely survived a harsh ice age.

Europe Between the Seas is split into chronological periods with each chapter: 6000-3800 BC, 4500-2800 BC, 2800-1300 BC, 1300-800 BC, 800-500 BC, 500-140 BC, 140 BC – AD 300, AD 300-800, AD 800-1000. Cunliffe spends time in various geological locations, as well as pointing out the important time periods of great change, such as “The Three Hundred Years That Changed the World: 800-500 BC,” and “States in Collision: 500-140 BC.” Along with an extensive bibliography and index, one can’t help but feel they are receiving an annual class worth of knowledge in one book. Europe Between the Oceans answers many questions, as well as presenting fascinating and oftentimes surprising thoughts and perspectives to a monumental period in the history of civilization.

For more book reviews, and author interviews, go to BookBanter.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ca vaut vraiment la peine de lire "Europe between the Oceans, 9000 BC - AD 1000" meme si on n'est pas parfaitement à l'aise avec l'anglais, car l'essentiel dans cette oeuvre brilliante ne se trouve pas dans le texte pompier et inélégant mais dans le brio avec lequel, l'auteur se sert des cartes pour raconter l'histoire de l'Europe pour une époque pour laquelle des sources écrites n'existent pas.
Cunliffe annonce ses intentions très clairement dans son introduction; il va suivre le schéma de Braudel et écrire une histoire conjuncturelle de l'Europe pour la période de 9000 BC à 1000. Cunliffe se sert des études provenent des nombreux fouilles effectuées en Europe depuis la deuxième guerre mondialle afin de faire un histoire des mouvements de populations ainsi que la diffusion des cultures et des technologies.
Cunliffe explique comment les innovations de notre civilisation moderne (les langues écrites, la comptabilitié et la technologie scientifique) ont préparée une nouvelle conjoncture sans avoir pour autant causé une rupture avec l'ancienne conjoncture. C'est un véritable tour de force.

[Nick Weeks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, at over 500 pages and very dense this book is not for teh faint of heart. I do recommend it though because it gives a very interesting, deep, and unique history of Europe from 9,000 BC to 1000 AD. Rather than discuss important dates or people, Cunliffe focuses instead on the forces that shaped Europe, namely its position as a peninsula. I was really taken aback by how easily Cunliffe takes very complex ideas throughout this book and synthesizes them into short precise thoughts. For example, rather than spend an excessive amount of word space discussing ambition and inter-nation and intra-nation conflict, Culiffe simply describes "increasing expectations between generations" to summarize the constant drive by societies to always achieve more (namely wealth) than previous generations. Overall, an excellent read though you might want to alternate this with a few other reads due to teh length/density.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ten thousand years history of all of Europe has to be done with broad strokes. Given that, Cunliffe has done a good job of covering the subject without overwhelming the reader. There is one major exception, his anti-migration bias. He stresses over and over how each change in the culture does not mean that there was mass migration, yet as soon as literacy develops the record is of group after group moving. This also means that he does not follow the copper, horse and Indo-European languages migration theory. A smaller issue is he mostly ignores the change from bronze to iron.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendous book. The history of Europe from the end of the Ice Age to the beginning of modern Europe in 500 jam-packed ages by the premier British archaeologist.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cunliffe does geographical anthropology, looking at how land and water shaped European civilization. Fascinating, and definitely accessible to the non-specialist (e.g., me).

[Alberto Illán Oviedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Océano es un gran libro sobre el mar. El mar que nos une, el mar que nos mata, el mar que nos comunica, el que nos permite crear civilizaciones y destruirlas, el mar que se doma y se conoce, pero también el que se revela y nos hace desaparecer. Océano es un completo libro que aborda historia y arqueología, tecnología naval y el conocimiento de la navegación, la geografía a través de los milenios, los cambios que ha habido, el ansía de descubrir, el de relacionarse, pero también el de colonizar, comerciar, guerrear. El mar, el océano siempre estará ahí, conectándonos, enseñándonos los límites para que nosotros nos los saltemos.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A panoramic overview of Europe’s prehistory and antiquities. A good start up book.
Some of the notes follow:
Europe, in the form familiar to us today, began to emerge around 6000 BC.
At the height of the last glaciation (20,000-18,000 BC) the temperature was about 20 degrees C lower than it is today. With so much water tied up in the ice sheets, more than 4 km thick, the sea level dropped to 100 metres below the present levels.
Around 18,000 BC the climate began to warm up and reached a warm optimum around 7500 BC, which continued with minor fluctuations ever since. This led to establishment of the Gulf Stream. Relative sea level continued to rise. By 6,500 BC Britain had become an island.
Large-scale changes in global temperature are the result of cyclic variations in the earth’s orbit and tilt, altering its relation to the sun. Every 95,800 years the orbit veers from being almost circular to something more elliptical. As a result, the Northern Hemisphere develops a more intensely seasonal weather pattern, leading to the growth of the northern ice sheet. At around 41,000 years, the earth’s tilt change by almost 3 degrees. This too exacerbates the differences between the seasons. Every 21,700 years the earth wobbles on its axis, varying the distance of the Northern Hemisphere from the sun and again having a direct effect on climate.
By 7,000 BC Europe was peopled by mobile hunter-gatherers. By 4,000 BC all this changed and Europe communities had become food producers, cultivating crops of grain and herding domestic animals. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were replaced by Neolithic food producers.
The copper was first extracted in Anatolia in the sixth millennium BC, with large-scale production taking place in the Balkans.
The beginnings of horse-riding date to c. 4,000 BC. The earliest evidence for wheeled vehicles in Europe appears around 3,500 BC.
At around 2,900 BC a common culture appears in Europe. It lasts for about 500 years. Is typified by a tradition of single burial with the body crouched. Most are accompanied by large beaker-shaped pots, often with their surfaces decorated with impressions of twisted cord, which gave the name of the corded ware/single grave culture.
The period 1950-1700 BC saw the development of series of monumental regional centres, usually referred to as ‘palaces’ at Knossos and Mallia at Crete. It was referred to as Minoan civilisation. Around 1,500 BC palaces, with exception of Knossos were devastated by fire and abandoned. Mycenaean culture replaces Minoan.
After 1,300 BC in most areas of Europe cremation becomes popular.
Around 1,200 BC the Philistines, a small warrior elite, took control of now Israel and Palestine.
By about 900 BC the use of iron was widespread in most regions of the east Mediterranean.
Between 800 and 500 BC the two most active of the Mediterranean people were the Phoenicians and the Greeks. The Phoenicians occupied the narrow coastal strip of today’s Lebanon and Syria. Beyond the immediate confines of Europe were the Assyrians and the Persians.

[Jack Wimberley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This gave a very good overview of archaeological cultures of ancient Europe and has a lot of info about regions and times that get short-shrifted historically because of the lack of written records. I learned a whole lot reading this book, just like I hoped. However, one big caveat is that whenever Cunliffe lets hiis mind wander free, especially when he is is imagining details about past cultures that he thinks are "likely" or "probable," he has exactly the mindset you'd expect from an older upper-class Englishman who is an Oxford professor. When there are no bones, he assumes by default (that explorers, leaders, blacksmiths, and most anyone else are men. There's some amount of cognitive dissonance, since he reports about the burials of elite women leaders and warriors, and then promptly forgets about them. He nostalgically waxes on about young men going on heroic explorations, and it seems like he really wishes he was one of them. He constantly praises the "restless spirit" of these always-male explorers, and it gets kind of nauseating. With all this seeming praise directed at past cultures, it is unsettling that he is rarely critical at all. For example, he doesn't think twice about calling enslaved women wives.

All in all, I liked most of the information contained in the book, but more than occasionally the author's interpretations went past what the evidence warranted got in the way of enjoying the book.

[Dawid Łaziński · Rating 4 out of 5]

This richly illustrated book recounts Europe’s history from 9000BCE to 1000CE. It served me as a steppingstone for a further and more detailed analysis of the Greece/Rome Iron Age period, ca. 1000BCE+. With that in mind I found the book comprehensive and adequately generalizing. Cunliffe consequently underlines Europe’s unique geographical conditions. Rather than war and politics he sees climate, coastline patterns, rivers and natural resources as key reasons for continent’s ultimate internal diversification.

The print was very readable, maps abundant and terminology accessible. The chapters dealing with years after 1000BCE seamed superfluous as there is plenty of much more captivating publications on the Ancient and Medieval times and I personally sought a more socio-political rather than anthropological kind of narrative for that period.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barry Cunliffe's "Europe Between the Oceans" is an amazingly detailed overview of the long sweep of history from the late Stone Age through the Middle Ages. In particular, I'm learning quite a bit about the advent of farming, and there are also lots of tidbits that were eye-opening in terms of theories about how Europe was settled, comparing DNA analysis, language analysis, and other means of figuring out how Europeans came to live where they do.

[Edward Lengel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superbly written and scholarly treatment, expertly combining archaeology and historiography. Cunliffe surveys the early movements and migrations of the European peoples, with particular emphasis on how geography influenced trade, politics, and society. I found this book particularly fascinating in light of recent discoveries in the realm of DNA and genealogy. It's probably not for general readers, though.

[Ingrid]

No correlation to the lectures at all, soo.... ?!

[Rafa · Rating 5 out of 5]

El mar dará a cada hombre una nueva esperanza como el dormir le da sueños.
Todo aquel que ve por primera vez el mar se queda embobado, aturdido y maravillado y este libro logra transmitir como los primeros hombres se enfrentaron a este coloso, a veces apacible y a veces inmisericorde, que es el océano.
Para aquellos a los que les intrigue o les atraiga el mar es un libro imprescindible, erudito pero a la vez escrito con la sencillez del que sabe que no precisa alardear para demostrar esa erudición.
Sólo recordar que es un ensayo, no vamos a encontrar batallas ni aventuras, aunque la conquista del océano probablemente sea la mayor de todas.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of a whirlwind tour of European history. Very useful for me that it gives context for some current events.