Iron Age Crete differed from the rest of Greece in that it did not contain institutions, such as that of public assembly, the gymnasium, open assembly temples, the andron, etc., which were ubiquitous outside Crete. Crete was, however, actively interacting with the rest of Greece and this situation appears not be the result of limited contact. One explanation is that Crete contained a very different type of social structure during this period. The generation and spread of several of these common institutions outside Crete was due to the strategy of aggrandizers within active contexts such as that of funerals and interstate athletic contests. Crete lacked the interstate athletic context and its funeral contexts were decidedly different from those elsewhere, with far less activity tied to the behavior of aggrandizers. This observation suggests paths for future research.