Following Oliver Dickinson's successful The Aegean Bronze Age, this textbook is a synthesis of the period between the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC, and the rise of the Greek civilization in the eighth century BC.

With chapter bibliographies, distribution maps and illustrations, Dickinson's detailed examination of material and archaeological evidence argues that many characteristics of Ancient Greece developed in the Dark Ages. He also includes up-to-date coverage of the 'Homeric question'.

This highly informative text focuses on:

Dickinson has provided an invaluable survey of this period that will not only be useful to specialists and undergraduates in the field, but that will also prove highly popular with the interested general reader.