Smyrna, without doubt, shared the unfortunate and catastrophic destiny of the other neighboring Aegean cities in the 1200s BC which resulted in deserted cities and a general decline in the region’s population. All the cities located on the coast, which were dated to the Bronze Ages, experienced similar sad consequences of the large destruction in the 1200s BC . And nearly all of them exhibited similar characteristics of revival in the 1050s. The new settlers of the cities were the migrants who were forced to leave Greece and move to Western Anatolia.

These migration movements of Greek origin and the migrants who came to settle in ancient Bronze Age cities and their surroundings have always been a controversial issue. These communities were divided into subcategories that were formed by the regions they used to live in Greece and their distinct cultural traits. The Aeolians who settled in the north of Izmir were coming from Central Greece. The Ionians who were settled in the region of the Gulf of Izmir to the Bafa Lake were coming from Athens and its surroundings. The Dorians who settled to the Bodrum peninsula were coming from Crete and Southern Greece. Although they would come together to form the different colors of the shared Greek culture soon, in those days, they were groups of people who were fighting against each other before this identity was fully constructed. The details of the conflicts and their migration to Anatolia were kept through mythological legends or exaggerated heroic stories.

The chronology of this migrationist movement is set according both sources: the narratives of the ancient authors and archaeological finds. The first community to migrate to Anatolia was the Aeolians. Then, the Ionians followed the Aeolians and the Dorians completed the migratory movement. Despite the fact that this classification is useful for historical interpretation, it is not proper to imagine that these movements were planned; they were rather urgent and forced movements. It will be healthier if one sees this classification as representing the density of population movements in succeeding centuries.

The first settlers in Western Anatolia may be thought as the poorest people of the Aegean history, they used to live in small and scratchy huts. The finds belonging to this period with their unqualified and unelaborated art craft are completely different from those belonging to other eras. There is no evidence about the holy and religious places where rituals were held. The graves which generally provide a wide range of archaeological finds are also scarce. The grave offerings (in most graves there are no offerings at all) are remarkable to demonstrate the extent of poverty in the era.

Excavations in the city, moreover, have revealed that, not only the welfare but the knowhow of the older days were mostly lost. The houses built, at the very early period, were scratchily constructed without any foundations and no material for plastering was used to solidify the stones in the walls.

According to the descriptions on the limited number of excavated pottery, this period is named “Proto-Geometric Period”. The Proto-Geometric period lasts from the 1050’s BC to the 900 BC. At the first decades of this one hundred fifty years period, the settlements rather looked like immigrant camps evolving into very poor and simple rural settlements towards the end of the era. We may think that newcomers were challenging to survive during this one hundred fifty years period after the catastrophic events that affected all the communities in the region. The folk tales convey significant details about struggles that went on not only between the migrants and the native inhabitants but also among different migrant populations.