I am looking into Ancient Hellas and its history for final exams. The sources I'm reading seem to skip dates and I cannot grasp the periods especially when it comes to Athens and Sparta.
So far this is what I found:
Bronze Age
Minoan civilization: Lived on the island of Crete, flourished around 2000BC. This was the first "advanced" civilizations in Europe. Peaceful people, they were traders on the sea. Due to natural disasters and Mycenaean Greeks, it was destroyed.
Mycenaean Greeks: Lived in during 1600-1100BC. They were the first civilization on mainland Greece. The made up the last phase of the Bronze age. These guys had bronze weapons, they waged wars against each other for land and the built big fortresses. These were the guys who destroyed Troj. During the wars, they weakened and their civilization crumbled.
Dark ages
Dorians, Ionians: Time: 8th century BC. These greek tribes migrated through Greece and settled. They created poleis and instead of a kingdom, they formed an aristocratic republic.
Greek colonization: Time 8-6th century BC. Now we can talk about Athens and Sparta. Also during this time, Greeks started colonization due to overpopulation, not enough lands, political conflicts and for better economy. And also Democracy was a thing during this time.
Is all the above correct? Also when I say ancient Greece, what time period does that include? Everything I just mentioned?
So the wiki considers the historian definition of "Ancient Greece" to cover the period from the Greek dark ages (8c BCE) to the Byzantine period (6c AD) while the common definition ends at the Roman conquest (146 BCE)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greece
Your timeline isn't bad.
The period from the 8th to the 5th century is know as Archaic Greece. It is the beginning of the polis, the rediscovering of writing and the writing down of Homer, and the emergence of the hoplite and the phalanx form of combat. Sparta and Athens were established in the dark ages, but in the archaic period they both undergo famous reforms. In Athens Solon lays the foundations of democracy with Cleisthenes reforms creating the democracy which would exist through the classical period. In Sparta the reforms credited to Lycurgus establish the primacy of the military in Spartan culture. The era is also marked by the spread of colonies.
The Classical period begins with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant and the first invasion by Persia. It includes the first and second Persian wars, the creation of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian war. Following this was a period of constant war between all the major polis (including collapses of both Athenian and Spartan power) until the rise of Macedonian power in the 350s. From then on first Philip then Alexander fought to unify all the Greek states, achieving this over the following two decades. In 334 Alexander travelled into Asia and died in 323. This marked the end of the classical period.
The division of Alexanders empire by his generals began the Hellenistic period which lasted until the Roman conquests.
The key eras for Athens and Sparta are the archaic and classical eras.