Mainland Greece, it seems, was depopulated until the start of the European
Bronze Age. So. The model is one of immigration rather than invasion.
--start quote--
The sequence and material just summarized are consistent with an almost
complete gap in occupation in the mainland of Greece from ca. 3800-3200 B.C. ...
Hence, on the present evidence, we may reasonably suppose that the EBA
inhabitants of Greece were immigrants who upon their arrival enountered an
almost completely depopulated land ...
What might have caused such a depopulation in Greece? The rise in global
sea level may have played a significant part. As summarized recently by Lambeck
(1996), coastal sites in the Aegean would have lost considerable arable land and
this would have caused dislocation and strife .... A relevant example is Halai
in Lokris, which was abandoned early in the Late Neolithic after losing much of
its best land to the encroaching sea ...
--end quote--
--John E. Coleman, "An Archaeological Scenario for the "Coming of the
Greeks" ca. 3200", Journal of Indo-European Studies, Spring-Summer
2000, p. 131.
Coleman gives some sources for this:
K. Lambeck, "Sea-level Change and Shore-line Evolution in Aegean Greece
since Upper Palaeolithic Time", Antiquity, 70 (1996), 588-611.
J.E. Coleman et al, "Halai", 1992-1994, Hesperia 68 (1999),
285-341.
I don't have access to either of these journals.
This is the first serious, learned reference to sea-level rise and its
impact on humans, tho' such things have been whispered here and there on the
net.
Sea-level, so I've read, reached modern levels about 3200 BCE. There may
have been a pulse where it was even higher than today, perhaps as much as five
feet (I would like to document this statement, but cannot; it's stuff I've read
over the years). With 3200, we are at the advent of the Corded Ware Culture.
This is also about the time the glacier that entombed Otzi, the IceMan
advanced over his body -- and did not retreat back until the past decade or so.
The climate got cooler.
Sea level rises would have also affected the Black Sea, tho' not quite so
catastrophically as the transgression of 5500. This is the time the Ezero
culture manifests itself in Bulgaria; this culture the Troad is dependant
on.
Obviously, the Baltic and North Seas rose too. Peoples would have retreated
southwards, or in Scandinavia, to the north.
3200 is also a commonly-cited date for the breakup of PIE.
Fascinating stuff.