The perpetuated past: re-use or continuity in material culture and structuring of identity in Early Iron Age Crete

Abstract

Some re-uses of Bronze Age remains in Early Iron Age Crete and mainland Greece have been identified as attempts at legitimation and/or identity construction which operated at various social levels and were instrumental in the rise of the polis. This paper enlarges the scope of analysis in assessing the meaning of references to material remains of early EIA (Late Minoan III C/SM), as well as Bronze Age, date during the Protogeometric to Archaic periods in Crete. This was a time at which major spatial and social readjustments were taking place, themselves ultimately rooted in transformations occurring c. 1200 BC. The wealth of settlement data now available for EIA Crete adds an important new dimension to the discussion, which recognizes nucleation through PG–A at a significant number of sites established in the 1200 BC defensible settlement movement. The paper's conclusions are that this, and other elements of continuity and reuse in settlement, cult and mortuary practices, both reflected and helped to create a sense of history and of local regionally-based community early in the EIA.