The history of East Mediterranean and Aegean interaction: Some when, how and why questions

Susan Sherratt in Hartmut Matthäus, Norbert Oettinger & Stephan Schröder (eds) 2011. Der Orient und die Anfänge Europas. Kulturelle Beziehungen von der Späten Bronzezeit bis zur Frühen Eisenzeit [Philippika, Marburger alterumskundliche Abhandlungen 42]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 3-13.

From the introduction

It is probably true to say that the history of East Mediterranean and Aegean interaction goes back at least as far, and actually rather further, than the beginning of the Greek Neolithic, and that, although the nature of this interaction and the forms it took may have changed several times over the succeeding six millennia or so, it never stopped. What I propose to do in this paper is to offer a brief series of snapshots taken from the history of this interaction down to the Early Iron Age. It will be very sketchy and there will not be much in the way of specific detail, but I think it is perhaps useful to have some long-term contextual perspective from which to look at the real subject of this Colloquium, “Cultural Connections from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age”.