The same conclusions can be drawn from the other physical evidence of the Dark ages, from linguistic distribution, and from the survivals of early social, political, and religious patterns into later ages. By 800 B.C. the Aegean was an area of common tongue and of common culture. On these pillars rested that solid basis for life and thought which was soon to be manifested in the remarkably unlimited ken of the Iliad. Everywhere within the common pattern, however, one finds local diversity; Greek history and culture were enduringly fertilized, and plagued, by the interplay of these conjoined yet opposed factors.

Further we cannot go, for the Dark ages deserve their name. Many aspects of civilization were not yet sufficiently crystallized to find expression, nor could the simple economic and social foundations of this world support a lofty structure. The epic poems, the consolidation of the Greek pantheon, the rise of firm political units, the self-awareness which could permit painted and sculptured representations of men -- all these had to await the progress of following decades. What we have seen in this chapter, we have seen only dimly, and yet the results, however general, are worth the search. These are the centuries in which the inhabitants of the Aegean world settled firmly into their minds and into their institutions the foundations of the Hellenic outlook, independent of outside forces.