'Mycenaeans' at Knossos again: removing the skeletons from the cupboard

One of the more controversial topics of Aegean archaeology is the supposed Mycenaean presence at Knossos in the phase following the LM IB destructions and preceding the early LM IIIA 2 destruction of the Palace. This interpretation, very fashionable in the Seventies and the Eighties of the last century, suffered in particular from the application of socio-anthropological theories on Minoan archaeology within the last decades1. What was interpreted as a firm proof of the presence of individuals or even warriors coming from the Mainland (that is Linear B tablets and new types of tombs and assemblages with weapons)2, was then read as the result of a more or less complex phenomena of experimentation, competition and acculturation/hybridization