This volume represents a welcome addition to works on the archaeology of ‘early Greece’: the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages (c. 1700–700 bce). This span of time sees Mycenaean state formation, collapse, the so-called dark age and the rise again of complex society, the world of the polis. As K. acknowledges, specialists in several areas lay claim to the period; his own approach is a determinedly archaeological one: ‘any holistic study must start with material culture’ (p. 8). K.'s programme, set out in the introduction and Chapter 1, is to use archaeologies of landscape, interaction and complexity to construct an archaeological history.
The book focuses on central Greece, as bisected by the Euboean Gulf. This includes Boeotia, Phokis, East Lokris, Malis, Thessaly, Euboea and Attica. This choice of region in itself makes the book attractive. While no less ‘Mycenaean’ in early times, and no less ‘palatial’ for some of that time, the region is less prominent than the Argolid, Messenia and Crete, at least for the Late Bronze Age. But, as K. notes, some of the most impressive of all Mycenaean works were carried out there – the drainage of Lake Kopais, the building of Gla and the Treasury of Minyas. In the era after the palaces, again where the Argolid and Messenia are often put under the spotlight, there were equally significant changes in settlement patterns in palatial central Greece. There were non-palatial regions too. In the Early Iron Age Lefkandi became more important than before, and later still many poleis of various sizes and degrees of clout developed across the region, Chalkis and Eretria on Euboea and as well as Athens and Thebes. K.'s zoomed-in regional approach to the populated landscape is very informative.
Within central Greece K. has drawn on the results of gazetteers, catalogues and surveys to identify 401 sites, which are listed in the appendix and shown on maps 31 and 32. Sites include finds of artefacts (or artefact scatters), isolated tombs, cemeteries and settlements or combinations of these. In order to counterbalance urban rescue archaeology, which ensures more discoveries in urban areas, K. counts these (e.g. Athens) as single sites. Sites close to one another are considered as communities. These communities form the data that is analysed to determine interconnections and to model how the inhabited landscape and networks of interaction between them changed over time. K. posits routes that connected sites and uses nearest-neighbour analysis to develop models of networks and activity zones. This method provides a way of visualising the world of central Greece across time.
The results of the modelling are shown in some of the 32 informative and clear colour maps created by K. and spread throughout the book. Using the maps, it is easy to see change over time in terms of sites; for example, Map 9 shows sites of Early and Palatial Mycenaean, Map 14 Palatial and Postpalatial, Map 18 Postpalatial Bronze Age and Prehistoric Iron Age, and Map 24 Pre- and Protohistoric Iron Age sites. Other important contemporary elements such as palaces, tholos tombs and later on sanctuaries are shown too. Maps 10, 15, 19 and 25 illustrate the models of connectivity and nearest-neighbour analysis, which demonstrate the changing interactions between communities and regions. K. also provides maps of the territories of Mycenaean states of central Greece, including a proposed Athens/Attic state, and a more detailed map of the Thebes state built up from Linear B toponyms (tabulated next to the map). Other maps provide further key data, including imports and evidence of long-distance contacts, metalwork and pottery affiliations. The carefully created visual aspects (maps, tables, figures) make the book particularly useful and appealing.
Aside from the graphic elements, the text is clearly and confidently written and neatly organised. The introduction and Chapter 1 discuss the aims and scope of the book and, along with Chapter 2, present the methodology in a relatively jargon-free way. Chapters 3–6 constitute the main ‘results and discussion’ part of the book, covering the Palatial and Postpalatial Bronze Age and the Pre- and Protohistoric Iron Age. In these chapters the sub-regions are discussed in turn along with key themes. Although focused on central Greece, K. has not neglected to set the discussion in a Greek and Aegean context, and, where necessary, to discuss the wider Mediterranean context. Here the communities, and even palace states, of Greece appear as small fry in comparison with some of the eastern Mediterranean states. The discussion is always informative and brings out the data shown in the maps. Whilst some readers may have issues with the methodology K. has adopted, it is at least clearly explained and justified.
The recognition of the importance of ‘regions’ is salutary. K. stresses that at each point in time, each traditionally defined period, we should not expect uniformity – we can use the term Mycenaean or Protogeometric, but should not expect identikit societies at the same evolutionary ‘stage’ of development. Indeed, most of Mycenaean Greece was non-palatial even when there were several states in existence, which demonstrates that different forms of society co-existed then as they did in later Greece. K. recognises that most of the time Greece was predominantly a village-based society. Rather than picturing a single Greece seen in profile on a complexity rollercoaster ride up and down, K. shows us palatial and non-palatial lines tracing different trajectories, with flatter non-palatial regions and more jagged palatial territories. We should, perhaps, imagine a Pin Art map of Greece made up of hundreds or thousands of site-pins at ever-changing heights providing a dynamic 3D relief map of complexity and connectivity.
One of the major historic episodes in early Greece is ‘the collapse’ of 1200 bce, which marks the boundary between the Palatial and the Postpalatial Bronze Age. K. addresses this in Chapter 4, where he proposes three explanatory factors for collapse: (1) the overextension of state authority in expensive building projects; (2) increased armed conflict; and (3) popular rejection of palatial authority. While the two Boeotian states, perhaps embroiled in conflicts that brought about destructions at Orchomenos, Gla and Thebes, collapsed, and a reduction and change in settlement patterns resulted, Thessaly and Athens seem less affected, perhaps because they were less centralised in the first place (the difficult case of Athens is discussed on pp. 95–100; Thessaly on pp. 92–5). Non-palatial areas such as Malis and Phokis experienced far fewer changes, though K. suggests a small polity centred on Krisa may have ended – perhaps again a rejection of a pre-existing authority. What we have, K. rightly emphasises, is not a single universal pan-Greek collapse, but the disappearance of a handful of states over a period of some decades.
With this regional perspective K. is able to emphasise the different trajectories of the various regions and sub-regions of central Greece before and after 1200 bce. For those who seek to explain ‘the collapse’ by dint of broad-brush causes such as climate change, invasion or mass migration, the regional patterns in the archaeology brought out by K.'s analysis must be addressed. This really pushes us to a conclusion that it is historically particular factors, personalities, motivations, events and processes that were at play across the worlds of Greece. K. carefully puts the collapse into a proportionate context; palace states collapsed, but what was not palatial did not, could not collapse, and there was nothing on the scale of, say, the collapse of the Hittite empire across the Aegean. What we see is a collection of transitions (p. 150). The maps provided clearly also dispel the myth of a dark age terra nullius, which must be replaced by a picture of individuals and communities actively seeking to make the best of their present and future.
K.'s timely book lands on the desk on top of D. Small's Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution (2019) and alongside I. Lemos and A. Kotsonas's A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean (2020). These three books demonstrate the lively discussion on the period and offer us data, interpretations, theoretical discussions and methodological suggestions. Societies in Transition is a clear and positive contribution to the archaeological history/histories of early Greece from the Late Bronze Age through to Protohistorical times. It should be read by students and specialists alike.
