Sentence:  Those modern scholars who urge that we must keep in mind the fundamental continuity of Aegean development from earliest times - granted occasional irruptions of peoples and ideas from outside - are correct ; but all too many observers have been misled by this fact into minimizing the <WSD>degree</WSD> of change which took place in the early first millennium . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a specific identifiable position in a continuum or series or especially in a process