Mycenaean Peripheries during the Palatial Age: The Case of Achaia

Despite much intensive archaeological fieldwork, several regions of Greece still have not yielded any evidence for palatial structures. It may be, therefore, that they never gave rise to full palatial states. Rather, in regions such as Achaia, local elites may have functioned within less-articulated organizational orders (perhaps chiefdoms), which did not require the centralization of economic activities. These polities existed alongside the more complex palatial states, but it is not necessary to posit that they were subjected to or dependent on the palaces economically or politically, although their opportunities may have been constricted by the presence of the larger power. After the collapse of the palatial system around 1200b.c., some of these smaller polities seem to have flourished in the LH IIIC period.