eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

populations. Conflicts were perhaps inevitable and in some instances, individuals may have
felt impelled to join the travellers in a move to find a new place, or a new way of life, that was
less tied to an unpredictable land. Those staying behind would have kept old stories alive.
Conceivably, at a time when labour was diminished, breached dams could not be repaired in
time for the next wet season, or perhaps no one was left to teach the new generation how to do
it effectively. If communities were significantly reduced then the requirement for reclaiming
land for arable farming would also have been reduced. Individuals or groups may have
passed through on occasion, communicating knowledge to other individuals or groups they
met by chance or to whom they were travelling. New people arriving may have heard the old
stories and myths and saw the by now old remains. Alternatively, perhaps a new generation
of the old population had been inspired from tales elsewhere that they found applicable to
themselves, tales of heroes. It may have taken an exceptional individual to think that if their
ancestors could have lived in substantial settlements on the plain, then they could do so again.
To begin a process of regeneration, the starting point would have been the gods; the spirits
that lived in the landscape that inhabited the natural places, the springs, the rivers, the
sinkholes, the mountains – all places where we see evidence of early religious ritual (see
Chapter 4). The significant evidence from sanctuary sites may reflect a real concern with
propitiating the gods in order to embark on what was conceived of as a new beginning. Not a
beginning that commenced at the same chronological point in all areas of Arkadia or Greece
as a whole, but acts by individuals or communities that inspired and spiralled, acting back
upon communities that were in contact with one another. Maybe we should not underestimate
the now traditional theory (Coldstream 1976) that the Homeric poems circulating at the time
were a catalyst, or perhaps served as reinforcement. This did not need to be a one-way
movement, but a phenomenon that was constantly being reworked. Different understandings
would have been created and changed, one group seeing significance in some tales more than
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