GENERAL ASPECTS The Significance of Developments in Peloponnesian Pottery over the Middle to Late Helladic Transition. Veröffentlichung der Mykenischen Kommission|(Social) Place and Space in Early Mycenaean Greece Mykenische Studien 35|

Abstract

The Peloponnese is often called the heartland of Mycenaean civilisation, and it is certainly possible to followthe processes involved in Mycenaean development more closely through the archaeological material of the Peloponnesethan through that from any other region of mainland Greece. But the Peloponnese was not a unity in the MiddleHelladic period; its different regions show evidence of distinctive characters, not least in their pottery, and show differingpatterns of contact with the outside world. We might therefore expect them to show differences in their developmenttowards Mycenaean, and there is evidence for this, in the pottery as in other features; but there are also indications ofcloser links between the regions, which helped spread the influence of the increasingly prominent northeast and thedevelopment towards the notably homogeneous pottery tradition of later Mycenaean times. This paper will consider theevidence now available for these developments and the motivation that may lie behind them