[yarddog]

I think the first 3 were not really civilizations but groups of people who did some very interesting things.

I don’t think Crete really disappeared as much as came under the thumb of Mycenaean Greeks.

[Varda]

The Mayans are considered a civilization by every traditional standard. Chahokia and Easter Island have in the past been considered advanced tribal societies but not quite civilizations. The standard for civilizations is looser these days.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, the last phase of the palace of Knossos had Greek-speaking rulers with records in Linear B (a syllabic system used for recording an early form of Greek), so Mycenaeans from mainland Greece must have conquered at least that part of Crete.

There are some records from a much later period in the Greek alphabet but in a non-Greek language found at Praisos in eastern Crete--clearly a remnant of the pre-Greek population of Greek was still holding out there (but I think the records are pretty few and don't provide a lot of information--the language is called Eteo-Cretan).

[cloudmountain]

I think the first 3 were not really civilizations but groups of people who did some very interesting things.
I don’t think Crete really disappeared as much as came under the thumb of Mycenaean Greeks.

The first three are the Oriental Asian descendants...I mis-wrote because I wrote too fast. I think they left their native lands because they saw no hope in staying put. The Easter Island folks came too far west, though, and landed on an ISLAND, which doomed them. They ran out of everything.

The Minoans were incredible. Hard to believe that they knew so much so long ago. But, even they bowed to the "bigger stick" of the Mycenaean Greeks.