<Li> Ottoman Greece covering a period from 1453 up until the Greek Revolution of 1821, </Li> <Li> Modern Greece covering a period from 1821 to the present . </Li> <P> At its cultural and geographical peak, Greek civilization spread from Greece to Egypt and to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan . Since then, Greek minorities have remained in former Greek territories (e.g. Turkey, Albania, Italy, Libya, Levant, Armenia, Georgia) and Greek emigrants have assimilated into differing societies across the globe (e.g. North America, Australia, Northern Europe, South Africa). Nowadays most Greeks live in the modern states of Greece (independent since 1821) and Cyprus . </P> <P> The Neolithic Revolution reached Europe beginning in 7000--6500 BC when agriculturalists from the Near East entered the Greek peninsula from Anatolia by island - hopping through the Aegean Sea . The earliest Neolithic sites with developed agricultural economies in Europe dated 8500--9000 BPE are found in Greece . The Proto - Greek language (also known as Proto - Hellenic) is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek, including the Mycenaean language . The transition from the Greek Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (or Early Helladic I--II) occurred gradually when Greece's agricultural population began to import bronze and copper and used basic bronze - working techniques . During the end of the 3rd millennium BC (circa 2200 BC; Early Helladic III), the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Greece underwent a cultural transformation attributed to climate change, local events and developments (e.g., destruction of the "House of the Tiles"), as well as to continuous contacts with various areas such as western Asia Minor, the Cyclades, Albania and Dalmatia . </P>

Due to the persian wars the center of greek philosophical speculation shifted from ionia to