The final disintegration of Mycenaean civilization, marked in certain areas by the survival of Mycenaean settlements until their total or partial desertion, and in central mainland Greece by the introduction of new factors which, even though in some aspects based on the old, maybe said to constitute the beginning of the Dark Age. The period from about the middle of the eleventh century to the end of the tenth is marked by a time of settling down and resumption of peaceful communication. The period is named Protogeometric because much of Greece and the Aegean is dominated by pottery of this style. The island of Crete, in spite of its very close connexions with the Mycenaean world, exhibits individual characteristics which place it, in other ways, outside the Mycenaean koine. The Cretans enjoyed an advantage apparently denied to the rest of the Greek world, except the Dodecanese, until the final years of the tenth century: their contacts with Cyprus.

Archaeological evidence affects the attitude towards literary tradition. Continuity of literary tradition was maintained between the Mycenaean period and the archaic Greek period by the recitation of epic lays. The movements of the Dorian group are all anterior to the so-called Dorian invasion. They afford some insight into the way of life of these primitive people. This chapter presents the traditions of Dorians and Heracleidae before the Trojan War, as well as the traditions of Dorians and Heracleidae between the Trojan War and their entry into the Peloponnese. The Dorians chose to attack Melos and Thera first before other conquests, presumably because these islands were on the way to their friends in east Crete, Rhodes and the Dodecanese and also because they held important positions on the trade routes to the Levant. The chapter also talks about the invasions of Thessalians, Boeotians, and Eleans, and ends with a note on the effects of the invasions on the Mycenaean Greeks.

For nearly two centuries, after 1400 BC, the Mycenaean civilization was free to develop and enjoy a remarkable prosperity, founded in part on the heritage of Minoan culture which it had already absorbed. A generation after Thebes had withstood a long siege, the attack of the Epigoni was successful, and Thebes was destroyed. The sack of Thebes may then be regarded as one of the certain events of Mycenaean history; and the elimination of this rival has an obvious bearing on the development of the Mycenaean power in the Peloponnese. The acquisition by descendants of Pelopids of the kingdom of Mycenae itself, and so of the supremacy of Greece, is represented as subsequent to and to some extent consequent upon the death of Heracles and of his rival Eurystheus. The Queen's megaron at Pylus has a secluded sitting, but this should not be taken to imply an oriental segregation of women in Mycenaean society.

The expansion of Mycenaean civilization had been bound up with a vigorous trading activity in the eastern Mediterranean, and for the archaeologist the recession of that trade is one of the most obvious symptoms of the Mycenaean decline. For later Greeks the Trojan War was the best remembered event of the Mycenaean age: it is the central fact of history behind the Iliad and Odyssey; and it was constantly present to the Greek mind as a turning-point of the heroic age. The list of Trojan allies in Iliad II is but sketchy compared with the Greek catalogue; and this strengthens the belief in its Mycenaean date. The wide coalition of presumably maritime allies who assisted the King of Libya is indicative of seriously disturbed conditions in the eastern half of the Mediterranean; and though Merneptah was at this time successful in repelling them the disturbances were to recur in the reign of Ramesses III.