The Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) was founded in 1986 by Thomas G. Palaima as a research center pertaining to the use of writing in Minoan Crete (Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A ca. 1850-1450 BCE), Mycenaean Greece and Mycenaeanized Crete (Linear B ca. 1450-1200 BCE) and the island of Cyprus (Cypro-Minoan in the Bronze Age and Cypriote Syllabic script in the historical period ca. 1500-1200 BCE and 750-225 BCE respectivley). PASP was supported by the Comité International pour les Études Myceniennes, the governing international body for work on these writing systems, their texts and their cultures.

A strength of PASP is that it is part of a graduate research program in the Department of Classics at University of Texas at Austin, the largest Classics program in the United States. PASP does not grant its own degrees, but provides graduate students in the UT program who are receiving broad training in all areas of Classical civilization with the opportunity to do specialized research at a high level in areas of Aegean and eastern Mediterranean prehistory and archaeology pertaining to inscribed or marked materials. It also facilitates work by visiting scholars, junior and senior, American and foreign.