For the very early history of the Med—geological to 500 BC—I found the book The Making of the Middle Sea by Cyprian Broodbank to be an interesting read; ToC: >

For the very early history of the Med—geological to 500 BC—I found the book The Making of the Middle Sea by Cyprian Broodbank to be an interesting read; ToC: > One: A Barbarian History • Two: Provocative Places • Three: The Speciating Sea (1.8 million – 50,000 years ago) • Four: A Cold Coming We Had of It (50,000 years ago – 10,000 BC) • Five: Brave New Worlds (10,000 –5500 BC) • Six: How It Might Have Been (5500 – 3500 BC) • Seven: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (3500 – 2200 BC) • Eight: Pomp and Circumstance (2200 – 1300 BC) • Nine: From Sea to Shining Sea (1300 – 800 BC) • Ten: The End of the Beginning (800 – 500 BC) • Eleven: De Profundis * https://thamesandhudson.com/the-making-of-the-middle-sea-9780500026441 https://thamesandhudson.com/the-making-of-the-middle-sea-978... * https://archive.org/details/makingofmiddlese0000broo https://archive.org/details/makingofmiddlese0000broo * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian_Broodbank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian_Broodbank