The recent movement in academia, especially in the humanities, which is expressed by the term decolonization brings together a number of intellectual, social and political concerns and builds upon critiques and positions that have been advanced over the last decades. In the field of Aegean prehistory there is still no coherent program for decolonization, and one may not be needed. But I contend that an explicit debate on the contours of such a move is urgent. It can start by revisiting the earlier debates, of historiographic and theoretical nature, on the constitution of the sub-discipline and its connection to classical archaeology, and on the perils of cultural evolutionist thought. But it will also need to reopen the discussion on the resilience and persistence of cultural/ethnonymic terms (such as “Minoans” and “Mycenaeans”, for example) and their detrimental effect, especially in the era of archaeo-genetic essentialism. Inevitably, the racialization of Aegean prehistory, a topic that, at long last, is currently under sustained exploration, will have to become a central concern. This loss of both intellectual and political innocence should not leave out the structural barriers for decolonization, especially institutions such as metropolitan, “universal” museums, private collectors, “foreign” schools, and structures of training and funding. In this talk, I will be exploring such themes using examples from several Aegean prehistory contexts, and from contemporary events that have received extensive public and media attention.