Why is there such resistance towards calling it the Dark Ages? If society regresses and started producing more simplistic art, isn't objective to call it a regression?
As I mentioned, Dark Age is a historical term that denotes an absence of texts, not an archaeological one. We see a scaling down and isolation of village economies, but it's certainly not a regression, it just becomes harder to discern in the record. Equally, we can't really base a period name purely on artistic expression relative to older ones, by that logic we would be living in a Dark Ages today compared to the Renaissance. Dark Age gives precisely the impression that Greek society underwent a regression or fall, which just isn't what we're seeing archaeologiclaly.
OP already gave you an answer, but answering to your objection (that can be applied to other events in history, such as "age of enlightment" calling middle age the "dark ages"), this too inform us of the past - it inform us how people who came up with terms were thinking
This is the third channel with the Not Dark Ages" title. Yes they were very dark. When major civilizations end like the Hittite and Myceneans did, not to mention Ugarit. Writing and diplomatic treaties vanished, as did most long distance trade. It's pretty dark.
Writing and diplomatic treatise didn't end, they transformed and scaled down to village level economies. But as I mentioned, Lefkandi makes a strong case for continuing distance trade and elite culture given that Euboea was central to the LBA trade network and continued throughout the EIA. Equally, places like Cyprus and Sicily bounced back rapidly to the extent they were barely effected by the economic disruption. The period is only "dark" because of the absence of textual sources, not because it declined in quality.
Very cool video
Why is there such resistance towards calling it the Dark Ages? If society regresses and started producing more simplistic art, isn't objective to call it a regression?
As I mentioned, Dark Age is a historical term that denotes an absence of texts, not an archaeological one. We see a scaling down and isolation of village economies, but it's certainly not a regression, it just becomes harder to discern in the record. Equally, we can't really base a period name purely on artistic expression relative to older ones, by that logic we would be living in a Dark Ages today compared to the Renaissance. Dark Age gives precisely the impression that Greek society underwent a regression or fall, which just isn't what we're seeing archaeologiclaly.
OP already gave you an answer, but answering to your objection (that can be applied to other events in history, such as "age of enlightment" calling middle age the "dark ages"), this too inform us of the past - it inform us how people who came up with terms were thinking
This is the third channel with the
Not Dark Ages" title. Yes they were very dark. When major civilizations end like the Hittite and Myceneans did, not to mention Ugarit. Writing and diplomatic treaties vanished, as did most long distance trade. It's pretty dark.
Writing and diplomatic treatise didn't end, they transformed and scaled down to village level economies. But as I mentioned, Lefkandi makes a strong case for continuing distance trade and elite culture given that Euboea was central to the LBA trade network and continued throughout the EIA. Equally, places like Cyprus and Sicily bounced back rapidly to the extent they were barely effected by the economic disruption.
The period is only "dark" because of the absence of textual sources, not because it declined in quality.