In my Ancient Greek history class, the main text we are using is Raphael Sealey's A History of the Greek City States, 700-338 B.C. (1976). A basic thesis of his in the book is that the Greek poleis of the archaic and classical periods were a fundamentally new form of political and social organization, and that the Greeks of this period did not really inherit any major political institutions from Mycenaean Greece. The archaic and classical Greeks were "creating political institutions anew with nothing more to start from than the monogamous family and the fluid institutions of migrating tribes" (pg. 14).
This text was published in 1976, and I'm wondering if Sealey's claim has held up in light of recent scholarship. Did the archaic and classical Greeks really create the polis and related institutions out of nothing, or did they develop from previous institutions in Mycenaean and 'Dark Age' Greece?
Sealey’s argument (which is not solely nor originally his either) persists in essence, though it is perhaps discussed in different terms. Most archaeologists and classicists would focus on the economic continuity and innovation of Greek peoples driving new political institutions.
What happened in the so-called Dark Age is simply that the void left by the fall of the Mycenaean hegemony was never replaced and villages evolved to become self-governing poleis. Some succeeded, some did not.
The archaeological record shows that those with an ability to engage in trade developed the wealth that fostered more sophisticated political organization, whether that was under a monarch, a council, a tyrant (an elected or appointed autocrat), or a democracy. Poleis that were market towns for converging overland trade routes tended to rise into prominence before those that pursued fortune and security by seaborne trade, though it would be those that would dominate by the end of the Archaic leriod. Ergo, Thebes and Sparta were economic forces before Corinth and Athens. (Euboea being the one exception: they had access to Levantine traders early, but were soon displaced as the leaders of ultra-Aegean trade by Corinth).
In sum, it was not a unified effort among Greek-speaking peoples, but more of a “unified rivalry.” All that united Hellenic peoples was a shared language, religion (and religious observances like the Panhellenic games), and a shared literature (the Homeric tradition). They produced and traded under their own localized concern and to advance their own interests.
Was this wholly new? Yes and no.
Linear B records from the more complete archives (especially the Pylos (PY) and Knossos (KN) tablets) show a system of regulated trade in which the palaces controlled a deep and diverse economy, to include redistributive wealth management. An example, the village of Amnissos might be wholly devoted to producing textiles but not honey or wine. The bureaucrats at Knossos made sure that Amnissos got their wine and honey so long as they kept up textile production.
Once the palaces collapsed, villages still produced what they historically produced and either learned to trade for other commodities or start diversifying their own production and trade for what they couldn’t produce. (After the collapse of the palace-based economies, there was a time of little to no trade and paucity, but that lasted only a couple generations or so in most places, but the archaeological record shows that times were tough.). Simple economics.
And so, yes, the polis was a new political institution, and no two were exactly alike, but what they sought to protect and advance was hardly new. The establishment of the first Panhellenic Games in 776 BCE underscores the shared enterprise of the new economic and political realities: ever polis was more similar than different, and every polis was doing the same thing, but doing it their own way.
Is this for a term paper?