Late bronze age Greece and the Balkans: a review of the present picture

Abstract

This article brings a reassessment of the survey of relations published in the author's 1985 book. The discrepancy in chronology seems now to be much nearer to a solution: more material evidence is known from the frontier area and from the Balkans in general, thus enlarging the documentation of the extent of Mycenaean influence in the north, and also clarifying the situation in Late Mycenaean times, when various northern influences were felt in Mycenaean Greece. The crisis at the end of the Aegean Bronze Age was connected with an influx of new populations, though substantial local traditions were also retained. The joint efforts of tradition and innovation prepared the further development of Greece.