Helladic is a modern term used to identify the periods describing the cultures of mainland Greece during the Bronze Age (c.3000-c.1100 BC). Late Helladic is the period of the Mycenaean civilisation.
The Early Helladic had an agricultural population using the basic techniques of bronze-working. EHI sites appear to be concentrated in coastal areas, e.g. in Argolis (Lerna, Tiryns), Boeotia (Thebes) and Thessaly (Pefkakia); and nearby islands such as Aegina (Kolonna) and Euboea (Lefkandi). EHII (c.2500-c.2300 BC) sites are more numerous. The Lefkandi-I culture (EHIIB) had major sites in Aegina (Kolonna), Attica (Raphina), Boeotia (Eutresis, Orchomenus, Thebes), Euboea (Lefkandi, Manika) and Thessaly (Pefkakia).
Evidence from this period suggests that increasingly larger settlements may have been administrative centres. Lerna on the coast of Argolis was first occupied during the Neolithic, subsequently abandoned and then reoccupied in Early Helladic. The site was fortified and the two-storey House of Tiles was built, which appears to have served an administrative function and may have been a proto-palace.
Nearly all the Early Helladic II-III transition sites have revealed evidence of destruction by burning; Lerna was burnt to the ground. This destruction coincides with the introduction of a new culture characterised by Minyan ware, which is a fine wheel-made pottery. It is debated whether this change is associated with a population of early Greeks moving into Greece for the first time, an intrusion which has been variously dated from c.2200 to c.1500 BC.
Settlement patterns during the Middle Helladic differ from those of the Early Helladic in that they are typically located on top of rocky hills or eminences. Thus, in contrast to the dispersed nature of the EH settlements, MH settlements appeared to be nucleated with sites throughout the Peloponnese and Central Greece.
Unlike most Middle Helladic sites Malthi, an acropolis in Messenia, was fortified and appears to have been built to an integrated plan. Many of the best known MH sites have shown continuity from the Early Helladic, e.g. Eutresis, Lefkandi, Lerna and Kolonna. Additional sites include Nichoria (Messenia), and Ayios Stephanos (Laconia).
The end of the period is marked by an increasing social complexity associated with a palace-based civilisation. The presence of fortification walls at several Middle Helladic sites suggests the beginnings of increased belligerence between locales. In Messenia fortification walls have been unearthed at Malthi, Peristeria and Pylos, as well as a handful of additional sites in Attica. The rise of Mycenaean culture begins during the Late Middle Helladic, centred initially on the eastern Peloponnese and Central Greece.
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