The History of Settlement in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Crete: A Review and Synthesis

Abstract

Major changes in the political, economic and cultural landscape of Crete occurred between ca. 1450 and 550 BCE. The ways in which communities operated and responded to (and also influenced) these many changes, are in turn reflected in the shifting landscape of human habitation on the island in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. This article synthesises a wide range of evidence from archaeological survey and excavation to provide an account of developments in settlement patterning on Crete in the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BCE, and to illustrate the connections between the changing nature, distribution and integration of settlement systems on the island, and the forms of political organisation and economic activity operating through time. Bracketed by the Bronze Age palaces on the one hand, and the Archaic poleis or city-states on the other, the diachronic study of settlement evidence across this period of Cretan history offers a valuable window into the relationships between human occupation of the physical landscape, and developing socio-cultural systems, with relevance to other regions in Greece and beyond in antiquity.