The Achaeans were organized into kingdoms centered around small walled towns. Around 1550 BC, the city of Mycenae, located in the northeast Peloponnesus, appears to have dominated the rest of Achaeans. From this evidence, archeologists have named the culture of this time the Mycenaean Civilization. (See also: Minoan Civilization.)
The Achaeans have been termed "militaristic agriculturalists". They prayed to the mountain gods and earth goddess. Chariots formed the backbone of their armies and around 1400-1300 BC, the Mycenaeans overpowered the Minoans of Crete.
Around 1200 BC occupation of most of the Mycenaean citadels ended, as happened to other cities across the near east, and their civilization faded away; later Dorians occupied many of their strongholds in the Peloponnesus and elsewhere in Greece, and the Hellenic civilization preserved fragments of information about these people in their legends and myths.
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