In addition, pottery is the single most valuable resource for determining chronology. Since it is so
common and since stylistic fashions tend to evolve fairly uniformly within a given tradition, it is possible
to arrive at a reasonably reliable relative chronology based upon the analysis of the decoration of painted
pottery. Once this relative chronology has been established – and for some periods of Greek civilization
the evidence is so abundant and the skill of the modern experts so refined that a chronology can be
devised that is accurate to within about a decade – it can be correlated with other types of objects that are
associated stratigraphically with various points in the series. (Stratigraphy is that aspect of archaeology
that is concerned with the sequence in which successive layers, or strata, of soil have built up over a
given site; the excavations at Troy undertaken in the 1930s, for example, identified nearly fifty layers, or
phases, of habitation over the centuries, with the earliest layer naturally being the lowest.) The
combination of the analysis of pottery styles and the study of stratigraphy, along with other types of
evidence, can sometimes make it possible to anchor the relative chronology at some fixed points,
providing a reasonably accurate absolute chronology.
The analysis of pottery enables us to follow cultural and economic changes through the Dark Age, which
is itself often divided by archaeologists into identifiable periods associated with particular styles of
ceramic decoration. The earliest period of the Dark Age, down to about the middle of the eleventh century
BC, is referred to as the Submycenaean Period, characterized by the repetition of a limited number of
vase shapes dependent upon Mycenaean models, but executed at a much lower level of artistic and
technical competence. This period sees the abandonment of figural scenes, with the decoration consisting
merely of bands of color or other simple shapes. It is also characterized by a number of local or regional
styles, in contrast to the relative uniformity of technique in evidence earlier throughout the Mycenaean
world. This proliferation of regional styles provides part of the evidence for the increased isolation
characteristic of the years immediately following the Mycenaean Period. With the collapse of the palace-
based central organization of the Mycenaean Period there was a reduction in the circulation of skilled
artisans and of prestige goods, whose movement depended upon the connections established among
powerful and wealthy individuals in various regions of Greece. Consequently, the isolated communities
of Submycenaean Greece were exposed to a lesser degree of stylistic influence from other Greek
communities. This does not mean, however, that the Greeks were immobile. There is, in fact, evidence of
movement of people in the Greek world during the twelfth and eleventh centuries. That is, it appears that a
number of individuals or families or perhaps even whole communities changed their place of residence,
moving generally eastwards, across the Aegean Sea to the west coast of Asia Minor and the island of
Cyprus. It was presumably at this time that the distribution of Greek dialects that we find in the Archaic
and Classical Periods took place (map 4), a distribution that reflects this eastward movement from the
Greek mainland across the Aegean.