Alex Knodell has delivered an inspiring, sophisticated, and scrupulously researched study of central Greece, set within a comparative context of the evolution of complex societies across multiple scales. That this book seeks to take part in a wider dialogue regarding the transformation and emergence of complex societies is only part of why it should appeal to readers of American Antiquity; its more subtle importance lies in the model it offers for future “archaeological historical” syntheses of macroregions, whether in the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, or the Mississippian Southeast. The fact that this open access book rises to meet the terms of its convictions empirically, conceptually, and visually (with a rich suite of informative, full-color maps) makes it stand out for this reader, as it surely will for many other archaeologists.

One may glean something of the book's key concepts from its title—Societies in Transition in Early Greece. For Knodell, “societies” capture a diverse and changing array of human aggregates. Of importance here is the notion of “community.” What this term arguably loses in range and elasticity it gains in forcing archaeologists to think with the things that remain of past societies as ingredients within assemblages consisting of more than single sites and without the conceptual baggage that accompanies top-down considerations of “states.” Importantly, by juxtaposing diverse social configurations in different regions, Knodell avoids wrapping everything around a minuscule minority as the engine of change. “Transition” evokes the book's long-term perspective on the formation of—and metamorphoses within and between—societies over a 700-year swath of pre- and protohistory (ca. 1400–700 BC). Although “Early Greece” refers predominantly to the macroregion of central Greece—Thessaly to Attica, Phokis to Euboea—the book also has much to say about early Greece at large and within the Mediterranean as a whole. Overall, this synthesis takes the form of “an archaeological history”—the subtitle—which plays out in the book's structure and focus, given its concern with key “social” changes from a landscape perspective.

The book unfolds over the course of six chapters sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion where the author's aims and objectives are clearly stated. Chapter 2 sets out the key concepts of landscape, interaction, and complexity. Chapter 3 confronts hegemony in the Late Bronze Age through a comparison of archaeological remains from different regions. Although it adds to the consensus that Mycenaean palaces were independent, centralized regional polities, Knodell suggests that they are of limited territorial scope without sufficient time to form stable institutions. The chapter, therefore, explores a range of sociopolitical formations and opens a window into the diversity of political landscapes in the Mycenaean world. Chapter 4 pushes back against notions of collapse and pervasive degradation in the Postpalatial Bronze Age (ca. 1200–1050 BC). Over the course of roughly six generations, central Greece witnessed the reorganization of settlement, with a shift in orientation from agrarian plains to the sea, and with the rejection of palatial systems and the reconstitution of political authority, which took on diverse forms, including attributes more local than regional and more informal than institutional. Chapter 5 takes readers into the transformation of village societies in the prehistoric Iron Age (ca. 1050–800 BC), with shifts in settlement locations, a general decline in architectural scale and settlement size, and changes in burial practices that reveal a fascinating picture of regional diversity. Chapter 6 addresses the eighth century BC, during which increasing site numbers contribute to intensifying interaction, competition, mediation, and territorial articulation. The emergent world of increasingly routinized mobility is aptly tied to longstanding networks centered on Euboea. Overall, Chapter 6 paints a variegated picture of expanding village communities with “multiple emergences of complex social forms” (p. 193) prior to emergence of the polis. An appendix presents the names and numbered locations of all 401 sites mentioned in the text, along with the regions in which those sites are located, and archaeological components and occupational spans of each. Although more than seven photographs would have been welcome, their absence is perhaps warranted given the 32 full-color maps, which form necessary complements to the overall narrative.

Societies in Transition in Early Greece engages with a remarkable range of evidence and ideas, and its concepts and questions are carefully defined in light of the purposes they serve. Indeed, throughout the book, Knodell routinely evades the excesses of interpretation by taking a more pragmatic stance tempered by the nature of the archaeological data, and he is open to a variety of perspectives, displaying a deep understanding of a spectrum of possibilities related to the emergence of social complexities. Modestly, the author describes the book as “a contribution to the archaeology of settlement in central Greece in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age” (p. 19), but it is so much more. Knodell avoids reductivist arguments and oversimplified abstractions to offer a multiscalar picture—as refreshing as it is compelling—that will serve as a solid example of good practice, from which any archaeologist interested in diverse and changing social complexities from a landscape perspective can benefit.