The chapter begins with the basic nomenclature of our periodization and asks the question: what is Protogeometric? From there it tackles the issue of where were mechanically drawn circles first invented – which is now clearly somewhere in the north Aegean – but stresses that determining the place where circles were first invented probably does not matter a great deal when formulating broader conclusions of political, social, economic, or ethnic importance, and it leaves open the possibility that although Athens was not the first place to invent mechanically drawn circles, it may have been the place that gave rise to the Protogeometric style of pottery. The conventional periodization of Protogeometric is reviewed, as is the issue of regional styles of Protogeometric pottery in the Greek world, before the thorny issue of the relative and absolute chronology of Protogeometric is tackled. The chapter ends by asking whether we can speak of a Protogemetric Aegean, and the conclusion is that this is not really possible. A coda discusses doing away with the highly problematic notion of a “dark age.”

What marks out Athens in the Early Iron Age (EIA) is not only clear continuity from the Bronze Age but a steady rise of population through the EIA into the Archaic period. Following a brief topographical overview and a summary of Athens before 1200 BCE, this chapter focuses on the evidence of tombs, including an account of five and a half Athenians: a putative warrior aged 35–45 years at death, an old man aged 70, a young woman in her early 20s accompanied by terracotta model boots, a slightly older woman with her unborn child, and a social outcast. This is followed by what evidence there exists for the settlement of Athens. A major theme is the resilience of the population from the Bronze Age into the EIA and Archaic period. Whether it is cast as a village or town, the urban nucleus of the settlement was the Athenian Acropolis. What played out in the EIA in Athens was the formation of what was to become one of the largest and most successful city-states of the ancient Greek world.

During the Geometric period (ca. 900–700 BCE), the sociopolitical structure of Big Men became collaborative aristocratic rule. Most Geometric buildings had fieldstone foundations, mudbrick walls, and pitched thatch roofs, or, in the Cyclades and Crete, fieldstone walls and flat roofs. Larger dwellings were usually apsidal or rectangular, smaller dwellings often oval. In the eighth century, a large household could include separate buildings and areas inside an enclosure (Oropos, Eretria). By 700, multi-room rectangular houses with a courtyard appear (Zagora). Sanctuaries in settlements were usually open-air. Sanctuaries outside settlements proliferated in Late Geometric as sites of elite display and competition; rituals included animal sacrifice, communal feasting, and votive offerings. Monumental temples were built 725–700 at Eretria, Amarynthos, Naxos, Samos, Kalapodi, and Ano Mazaraki, all extra-urban except Eretria. Geometric burials were generally inhumations, though cremation was common in Athens/Attica. On pottery, angular geometric motifs replaced Protogeometric circular designs. Figured scenes (funerals, battles) appear in the mid-eighth century and possibly mythological scenes in the late eighth century. Greeks, probably Euboeans, borrowed the Phoenician alphabet ca. 800 BCE; early inscriptions were scratched on pottery, some in poetic meter. By ca. 700, many settlements had developed into the politically organized community called a polis.

The end of the Mycenaean palatial system around 1200 BC marked a turning point in the history of the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age, which brought about a fundamental transformation of the economic and social structures. The twelfth and the first half of the eleventh centuries BCE, i.e., the postpalatial period of LH IIIC and the Submycenaean period, were characterized by continuity and change. Life during this epoch was determined by rivalry and interaction between small-scale social groups, sometimes across long distances. The specialized arts and crafts controlled by the palaces had died out, while other sectors of the craft industry such as bronze-working and shipbuilding survived at a remarkably high level. Burial rites and ritual practices also continued in the tradition of the palatial era for three to four generations, while new trends emerged in other areas. The developments on the Greek mainland are illustrated by a regional survey. It shows that this transformative era also marks the transition to the Early Iron Age when Greek identities began to emerge.

The twelfth–eleventh centuries BCE mark the transition between the Late Bronze Age (LBA) of Cyprus and the very different social world of the Early Iron Age. The end of the LBA is marked by violent destructions, the abandonment of urban centers and rural communities, and a subsequent dramatic shift in settlement pattern. There is a clear break in material production on the island – especially in pottery production – and significant changes in funerary and ritual practice. Within the wider East Mediterranean, international maritime trade broke down, major palace economies and overarching empire states disappeared, and populations relocated. The direct effect on Cyprus is debated, particularly the presence of Mycenaean colonizing communities. The island’s copper trade apparently persisted, at a reduced scale from the LBA, and cultural and trading links continued with Crete and Philistine communities of the southern Levant. Using settlement and cemetery archaeology, this chapter explores the establishment of new communities on Cyprus ancestral to the Iron Age city kingdoms, the changing material world of the new settlements, contacts beyond the island, the earliest Phoenician activity on Cyprus, and the degree to which the island was a part of the emerging world of Iron Age Greece.

The chapter is concerned with non-archaeological evidence pertaining to the Early Iron Age in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Since this was the only period in Greek history that completely lacked literacy, we are left with oral tradition as the only means of transmitting information between ca. 1200 and ca. 750 BCE. However, numerous anachronisms found in the Homeric poems show that not everything Homer says about the past should be taken at face value. Much more reliable is the evidence of the dialects, another kind of nonarchaeological evidence that throws light on this period. The regional distribution of the historical Greek dialects fits in well with the destruction levels and depopulation attested at many Mycenaean sites, in that both suggest a sharp break in cultural continuity at the end of the Bronze Age. Nothing of this can be found in Homer. Instead, the epics convey an impressive demonstration of cultural continuity and of religious, social, and military uniformity in polities sharing a common identity. It was this picture of an imagined past that became canonical, and the memory of the collapse of Mycenaean Greece and of the period that immediately followed it was effectively wiped out.

This chapter starts by providing an overview of the radical social and spatial shifts which seem to have occurred within Cretan societies between the period of state collapse ca. 1200 and the early Archaic period from ca. 700 BC onward, including changes in settlement, subsistence, and ritual practice. It then presents three case study regions, possessing contrasts and similarities in patterns of change apparent from substantial detailed research data – the north Lasithi mountains in north central Crete, the Kavousi–Azoria region of east Crete, and the Phaistos–west Mesara region in the south of the island – in order to illustrate the points argued.

Corinth is often associated with the emergence of Greek monumental architecture. The long absence of worked stone in post-Mycenaean architecture cannot be explained by the loss of the necessary tools and techniques. Worked stone slabs were used in pit and cist graves in the northeastern Peloponnese from the Mycenaean through the Geometric periods, and large monolithic sarcophagi appeared at Corinth ca. 900 BCE. Such burials, sometimes containing valuable grave goods, apparently belonged to high-status individuals. By contrast, until the early seventh century BCE at Corinth and elsewhere, buildings had fieldstone foundations, mudbrick walls, and thatched roofs; isolated worked stones occurred rarely, e.g., as beddings for wooden thresholds. In the second half of the eighth century, grave goods disappeared from Corinthian burials, and the elite displayed their status with rich dedications in sanctuaries. During these years, Corinth became increasingly wealthy, first under the oligarchic Bacchiads and later in the tyranny of Kypselos. The first Greek temples with single-skin walls of cuboid stone blocks and roofs of terracotta tiles, built ca. 680–650 at Corinth and Isthmia, represent elite dedications. As with the worked stone in elite Corinthian burials, the quarried stone blocks used in these temples enhanced their display of wealth.

The story of the Iron Age Greeks in the western Mediterranean is currently under revision. The still dominant story is that Greeks migrated there in search of better land and greater economic opportunities unavailable in their homeland and encountered peoples who were backward in terms of their cultural, social, political, economic, and technological development. Through this interaction, the region’s cultural development was brought into line with these more sophisticated Greek newcomers. In the last fifteen years, however, a new picture challenging this traditional story has emerged, thanks to growing and better-interpreted archaeological data particularly from Etruria and Sardinia in Italy. This new picture has included significant changes to absolute chronologies, which have established that Italian developments are earlier than previously thought and are hardly describable as backward. Scholarship remains polarized between these two competing narratives. This chapter seeks to bridge these polarized divides and to take a more nuanced approach to the current block thinking. It argues that Etruria and Sardinia were indeed important regions in the Early Iron Age, capable of attracting Greeks westwards, and that Greeks had the greatest impact on those areas of Italy where they founded city-states.

This chapter explores Egypt’s interactions with Greeks and Greek culture during the Iron Age, particularly from 1000 to the early sixth century BCE. These interactions stemmed from Egypt’s integration (or lack thereof) into broader Mediterranean and Near Eastern trade and political networks. While evidence of Greek presence in Egypt before the seventh century BCE is limited, Egyptian or Egyptianizing goods were widely circulated in the Aegean, suggesting indirect contact through intermediaries like Phoenician traders. The Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BCE) was marked by political fragmentation and foreign dynasties, leading to an internal focus and limited engagement with Greek material culture. However, by the early Saite Period (664–332 BCE), foreign mercenaries and traders began settling in Egypt, culminating in the Greek emporion at Naukratis under Psamtik I. Archaeological evidence, including imported Greek pottery and Egyptian bronzes found in Greek sanctuaries, underscores the shifting dynamics of these interactions. The Saite rulers embraced foreign goods and influences as strategic tools for consolidating power, in stark contrast to their predecessors. This study emphasizes the role of archaeological data over Greek literary sources, offering insights into the evolving relationship between Egypt and Greece and the broader implications for Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange.