This chapter presents divergent and convergent trajectories by comparing the Early Iron Age on Crete with that of the Greek Mainland. Both regions suffered a dramatic and catastrophic collapse of urban and palatial civilisation at the end of the Bronze Age, but their subsequent paths were often quite different, as was the form of society that emerges in the light of early history in each region. However, in both, a significant social and cultural inheritance survives from the preceding palatial era, throughout the Early Iron Age, then on into the following historic Archaic era. Both the Mainland and Crete deconstruct initially into far simpler Iron Age societies, whilst at the end of the period both regions have also become restructured into class societies with similar features, centred around numerous city states. However, by the end of the Archaic era divergence appears, as some half of the Mainland states see a political revolution towards a relatively democratic model, whilst Crete remains frozen in an extreme form of serf-states.