was Tiryns, a hill 2 km from the innermost recess of the gulf. Other Argolid sites
were further inland, among them Midea, Dendra and Mycenae.
In the plains, the objectives were towns or villages situated on commanding
heights. The acropolis at Athens was such a site. In Boiotia, the low hill known
in historical times as the Kadmeia lay between two valleys. It had been the site
of a town, possibly fortified, in the EH II period and was again well populated
late in the MH period. The intruders took over the town and probably conferred
upon it the name “Thebes.”^21 In the Eurotas valley of Lakonia sites such as the
high Vapheio hill and—most recently identified—the Agios Vassilios hill (some
12 km south of Sparta) fell under control of the newcomers.^22
Not long after the first military men came to Greece—here the evidence comes
from tholos tombs—others seem to have found it profitable to take control of the
Bay of Navarino on the southwestern tip of the Peloponnesos.^23 Tholoi also show
that early in the LH period other harbors on the coast of Messenia and Elis were
prosperous and prominent. Peristeria lies 40 and Kakovatos 70 km north of the
Bay of Navarino. Louise Schofield suggests that Peristeria,
rivalled and perhaps even outshone Pylos in the Shaft Grave Era, with a
fortification wall and a large building dating back to the sixteenth century.
Three tholos tombs associated with the settlement date to the Shaft Grave
Era and further demonstrate the importance of the site at that time.^24In Tomb 3 at Peristeria, dating to the LH I period, archaeologists found three
gold cups along with fragments of gold ornaments. There are no gold mines in
the Peloponnesos, and the gold must have come to Peristeria in exchange for
something else.
The prosperity of these western harbors seems to have depended in part on amber
that arrived via the Adriatic from northern Europe. The survey of amber in
prehistoric Greece done by Anthony Harding and Helen Hughes-Brock found that
“there is no certain evidence for amber before the LBA in Greece and few reliable
attestations elsewhere” in the Mediterranean and the Near East.^25 With the
beginning of the LBA, however, a great deal of amber began to come into Greece
and to a few other places. Archaeologists found it especially in the graves at
Mycenae: Grave Omikron in Circle B held 122 amber beads, and IV in Circle A
a staggering 1290. Close behind the Argolid was the Messenian coast, which was
apparently more important in the amber trade during LH I and LH II than it was
in LH III.^26 Referring to Renfrew’s Emergence of Civilisation, Harding and
Hughes-Brock noted that:
Renfrew makes the interesting suggestion that amber at this period reached
the Mycenaean kings by means of a ‘prestige chain’ of gift-exchange
stretching across Europe, of which they formed the final link. How and
why such a chain should have come into action so suddenly and worked
for such a relatively short time would add yet another puzzle to the Shaft
Grave era.^27180 Militarism in Greece