 OK, so during the second millennium BC, the Aegean experiences episodes of intensifying connectivity and the development of a differentially shared vocabulary of material culture and practices. These processes of cultural affiliation are conceptually divided into two episodes and processes by us. The first is labeled minimization, where the cultural, economic, and or political influence is argued to spread from creed to specific areas of the southern Aegean basin. And the second is labeled Mycelinization, where the situation reverses and the cultural influences are argued to spread from mainland Greece. In this paper, I will highlight the many advantages that funerary evidence has to offer in unpacking some of these processes of cultural affiliation through two case studies. The first, treating the Mineralization of Chithera and the second, the Mycelinization of Knossos, thus focusing on the time period roughly 1850 to 1350 BC. Funerary evidence provides many cross-cutting variables. One can look at the organization of tombs within the funerary landscape, tomb architecture and form, tomb assemblages, and burial practices. Also, they usually tend to be enough tombs to capture a sense of inter-regional, inter-selement, and even inter-selement variability. As tombs are opened and accessible only for a restricted period of time, mainly during the funerals, and the interior of the tomb accommodated a restricted number of participants, cultural transmission, particularly in terms of the internal configuration of the tombs, would only have occurred under specific social circumstances that suggest close social interaction. So similarities in tomb architecture and burial practices provide strong support for both social contact and emulation. The similarities, however, are harder to interpret. They may indicate a lack of social interaction between the burying groups and the ability to emulate particular burial practices, that is, costs and labor, or a lack of desire to emulate and deliberate attempts by communities to distinguish themselves. Arguably, the most important aspect which we miss in the archaeological record is the funeral itself. The loss of a community member leaves a gap in the social fabric, which requires the redefinition of the identities and social relationships between individuals and groups. With each funeral, the social fabric is reproduced, renegotiated, and altered. Although within a family group, these events are relatively rare, separated in time by many years, if not decades. Within a larger community, they're expected to have occurred at a more or less constant rate. Given the rate of occurrence and tendency to pull in large groups of people for more dispersed social groupings, uniting them through funerary commentality and the rights of passage associated with death, funerals are expected to have played an important role in fostering social connectivity and in redefining cultural and social identities. To infer social contact, one of the main aims is to establish a degree of similarity between the tombs. I have done this through a multivariate analysis of tomb form and architecture of specific types of tomb, built or cut chamber tombs and toloi. The variables I considered for the analysis include the size, so the area of the tomb, the dimensions of the entry passage and doorway, the shape of the tomb chamber, and the shape of the entrance as characterized morphometrically bioliptical Fourier analysis and Procrustis analysis, and the total number of chambers. I combine these variables and analyze them with a statistical technique called the status, a version of multidimensional scaling, to produce a result that best describes an overall similarity structure for the tombs. Here you can see an example of the tombs' agnosals placed in relational space, based on their form and size similarities. This allows me to both represent the range of variability and to identify particular groupings of tombs. I applied this method to look at the mineralization of Kethra next. Kethra occupies a unique position in the southern Aegean as a long recognized stepping stone between Crete and mainland Greece, and is the only place outside of Crete where mineralization takes a funerary form. In particular, the nature of the connection appears to be a Cnossian or north-central Cretan one. While we know that other communities in the southern Aegean were in contact with and adopted elements of Cretan material culture and practices, funerary evidence there is lacking. Could they be resisting Cretan or Cnossian burial practices? It is hard to say what the absence of evidence means for other Menonai sites, especially when we don't really know much about local Cycladic burial practices. While it is possible that cemeteries away discovery is quite likely that this absence indicates modes of burial that are not easily detectable archeologically. The strong contrast in funerary evidence between Kethra and other islands might suggest that the nature of mineralization on Kethra was fundamentally different from the rest. To contextualize the nature of the funerary behavior and changes on Kethra, I'll first cover in detail Cnossian burial practices during the first half of the second millennium BC. The intensively investigated surface Cnossus furnishes the data set of roughly 150 published tombs for the second millennium. The majority encircle the main settlement, while there's also a large concentration of tombs at the harbour town of Poros and extending along the main route between the two towns. Rock-cut chamber tombs are characteristic of Cnossian funerary practices throughout most of the second millennium. When I plot the compromise factor scores of the status analysis for Cnossus tombs, you can see here differences in tomb form across time. The earliest examples date to the very start of the second millennium and maybe even a bit before and are found on both sides of the Cnossus valley. Grouped together with the late Bronze Age tombs is one of the earliest chamber tombs, the middle-minoan 1B alias tomb 1. It consists of a single round chamber with ink-clanning sides that emulates the round-built form of the Meseratholoi. You can also see the distinctiveness of the middle-minoan tombs with their multi-chambered and lobed form as being quite different from the late Bronze Age tombs. Both in general over time and over the course of an individual tomb's use, these tombs start out as single-chambered, usually adapted from natural caves and become increasingly compartmentalized through cut pillars and built walls. The separation is used for making distinctions between burials but also to delineate areas that serve as ossuaries. Most of the middle-minoan chamber tombs have cut entry passages but lack defined doorways a main chamber or a central space and always separating the individual chambers on the inside of the tomb. Some tombs such as ones that Poros and Gypsadas showed the increasing tendency towards a main space connecting to other chambers. The Poros chamber tomb in its initial phase was much smaller in single-chambered whereas after some time it was expanded and the original part was converted to an anti-chamber. Other tomb types in use at the same time include burials and jars and on the Gypsadas hill a built door of tomb and a monumental house tomb of the temple tomb. Modes of burial differ between the separate cemeteries at the propolis, maverspelio, and alias the bodies were placed in jars or coffins while at Gypsadas and Poros they were placed onto the chamber floor usually in crouched positions. At Poros some interments were elevated on wooden beers and beds or on a clay-built platform. I will now turn to the minimization of Kythera which shows strong links to Crete practices and material culture from as early as the middle of 3rd millennium BC likely due to migrating groups from various communities in central and western Crete. The few burials that are known from the start of 2nd millennium BC are all jar burials which is part of a geographically extensive burial tradition present on both Crete and Mainland Greece. But from the middle-menon 3rd period rock-cut chamber tombs start being cut and used throughout most of the island more or less around the same time manifesting at every level of the settlement hierarchy from the main settlement of Castri to second-tier sites and farmsteads in the hinterland. Closing the Kythron tombs alongside those of Knausos and Poros you can see here some similarities and differences. Some of the Kythron hinterland tombs were striking resemblance to the Knausian ones some being single-chambered some lobed with a half-pillar but the chambered tombs at Castri are distinctive in their form of homogeneity. These all follow a consistent template of one rectangular central chamber and either one or two side chambers cut into each available wall of the main chamber leading to a total of either four or seven chambers. Most cases that deviate from this pattern are tombs that have left room for additional chambers to be cut. Although the side chambers are cut at various times this template was conceived during the initial tomb cutting and respected during the tomb's use. Although all burial contexts are looted and disturbed there are so far no clay coffins or jar burials inside chamber tombs on Kythron and burials are likely to have been laid directly on the tomb floor. This is similar to symmetries of Poros and Gythsadas and unlike the tombs at Mavrospilion alias. The Castri chamber tombs are distinctive from the Knausos and Poros ones in having a formal main chamber and radially arranged side chambers with the final ways. Despite some differentiation between Castri and its hinterland sites in terms of tomb size and form, Kythron practices are far more homogenous, not only when compared to Crete as a whole but even with respect to burial customs at Knausos and Poros with which it shares most similarities. I would tentatively suggest that this strong homogeneity and similarity with particular Knausos Poros burial customs can be attributed to a movement of particular social groups from North Central Crete to Kythra and perhaps their desire to show solidarity. Turning back to Knausos from late Minoan II, so 1550 to 1490 roughly, there are a series of funerary changes that have traditionally been linked to influence from the Greek mainland in one form or another. Plotting the Knausian chamber tombs cut in late Minoan II to 381 alongside the contemporary Argelid ones you can see here an overlap in the range of tomb sizes and forms. Although many earlier tombs at Knausos go out of use around 1550 BC, there's continuity in a number of cemetery locations mainly to the east and south of Knausos. There was also a significant increase in the number of tombs constructed during this time, some in new locations to the north and especially en route to the harbor town of Poros. During this time, fairly large and distinctive single chamber tombs were built at Knausos all close to the harbor town. These included tholos tomb, two rectangular keel vaulted tombs with possible euguritic inspiration and large rectangular chamber tombs. A second group of chamber tombs were all small single chambered and irregular dating from late Minoan II to late Minoan IIIB, so 1550 to 1200 BC. These were all found around the main settlement and the intact examples contained between the one and three burials per tomb. The fact that there was a significant increase in the number of tombs being built, that small single chamber tombs were used alongside the growth and popularity of shaft graves and pit caves would suggest that the main driver force for the changes in burial practices from the earlier Middle Minoan period is a tendency towards single internments. The only intact Middle Minoan chamber tombs contained nine while others are reported to have contained at least 20 to 50 burials. The internment of one to three individuals per chamber to Knausos in the late Minoan II to IIIA I period is also in direct contrast with prosimna in the argolid, for example, which has an average nine but up to 27 burials per tomb. Another difference or rejection of burial practices is the continued use of clay and wooden coffins at Knausos where in the argolid the tendons use floor burials. In conclusion, at Knausos we see the close overlap in chamber tomb forms with the argolid for a very specific set of differences in burial practice. We have also seen the acceptance of very specific set of Knausian burial practices at Kithura, which appear across most of the island. The absence of other Knausian or Cretan burial practices on Kithura and in the Cyclades would suggest projection. However, as acceptance is marked by presence and rejection by absence, it is difficult to unpack what absence really means. Whether social contact and interaction was not sufficient or of a nature that would enable cultural transmission or whether there was an active resistance to exogenous burial practices. Thank you.