The central importance of the Early Iron Age and the Early Archaic for social transformation processes in ancient Greece has long been appreciated. In contrast, recent research is increasingly turning away from the idea of an overly linear and uniform development towards “the polis”. Instead, considerable regional variability has been identified as a defining characteristic of the period. The present volume is based on a conference held in Tübingen in December 2018, which aimed to draw attention to the manifold developments of this period in a comparatively small area [Attica, the Peloponnese and central Greece] on the one hand and on the other hand to critically question the transfer of the historical regions, which are attested more clearly in later periods. Questions concerning the definition and emergence of such regions are therefore foregrounded, while the authors also address the processes of social formation which are inextricably bound up with these developments. Eleven contributions tackle these themes from a historical and archaeological perspective. Themes range from the emergence of burial grounds at the edges of settled space and used by all sections of society to questions concerning the perception of territoriality, the settlement history of Attica, the emergence of “Attica” as a region, the rise of Sparta as a regional power, the actors recognisable in Laconian sanctuaries and the socio-cultural development of Phocis and eastern Locris in the Early Iron Age, and up to the economic history of Archaic Greece. Taken together, they open new perspectives on the development of early Greek societies.