Maps
It is hard to understand the relationships between cultures without understanding their geography. These maps will help you to see where things are happening, and why they happen in those places.
When people first came out of Africa, they lived in Israel and in Mesopotamia, in the so-called Fertile Crescent (and of course also still lived in Africa). The first evidence that people had settled down and begun farming also comes from Egypt and Mesopotamia, about 10,000 BC, at the end of the last Ice Age. By around 7,000 BC, perhaps as a result of the flooding of the Black Sea, people had begun to settle in less desirable areas like Greece, and the Indo-Europeans seem to have been living between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And people had begun to move into India and China. Here's a Google map of the Late Stone Age around the world.
Around 3000 BC, the Indo-Europeans seem to have begun migrating out of the Black Sea area. Some went west, and became the Celts; others went east, and became the Tocharians in western China. By 2500 BC, other Indo-Europeans were heading south into West Asia, and into India. Around 2100 BC, one group of Indo-Europeans reached Greece (and became the Greeks), while another later group reached Italy (and became the Romans), and another reached Germany and Poland. The Egyptians gradually expanded up the Mediterranean coast. Here's a Google map of the Bronze Age around the world.
The Bronze Age ended around 1200 BC, with a Dark Age all around West Asia and the Mediterranean, and the Iron Age began about 1000 BC with a lot of colonization, mainly by the Greeks and the Phoenicians, all over the Mediterranean. It is around this time that the Etruscans first became powerful in Italy. Here's a Google map of the Iron Age around the world.
In 539 BC, the Persians took over most of West Asia, and soon afterwards the Romans began taking over Italy. In the 330's BC, Alexander the Great conquered West Asia from the Persians, and by 275 BC the Romans were beginning to conquer the Western Mediterranean from the Greeks and the Phoenicians (Carthaginians). This Google map shows what the world looked like in the Hellenistic period.
By the time of Augustus and Jesus, around 4 BC, the Romans had established their empire all around the Mediterranean and Europe, and the Parthians had taken over the rest of West Asia. Here's a Google map of the time of the Roman Empire.
This situation remained pretty stable until the 400's AD, when the Vandals, Visigoths, Franks and other Germanic groups took over the Western Mediterranean. Then in the late 600's AD, the Arabs, coming out of the Arabian Peninsula, took over the Parthian Empire, most of the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Spain. Viking invasions from Scandinavia eventually resulted in the Viking takeover of Normandy. Check out the Google map of the Early Middle Ages.
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