A type of society characterized by intensive agriculture and people living in cities, towns, and villages.
At a minimum, people engaged in farming cereal grains on rain-fed or irrigated fields and breeding sheep and
cattle.
A system of government in which, in the place of kings, the people are sovereign, electing representatives to executive and legislative offices.
Around 1200 BCE, resulting from the collapse of the Hittite Empire and the weakening of the Egyptian New Kingdom; chariot warfare had become unsustainable in these early kingdoms.
Large multiethnic, multilinguistic, multireligious state consisting of a conquering kingdom and several defeated kingdoms.
Around 1500–1200 BCE, smiths were able to produce sufficiently high temperatures to smelt iron bloom, a mixture of iron and a variety of impurities.
Period from ca. 9600 to 4500 BCE when stone tools were adapted to the requirements of agriculture through the making of sickles and spades.
Farmers who received seed, animals, and tools from landowners in exchange for up to two thirds of their harvest and access to land.
Gathering of either all inhabitants or the most influential persons in a town; later, in cities, assemblies and kings made communal decisions on important fiscal or juridical matters.
People whose livelihood was based on the herding of animals, such as sheep, goats, cattle, horses, and camels; moving with their animals from pasture to pasture according to the seasons, they lived in tent camps.
A system of government in which most or all of the people elect representatives and in some cases decide on important issues themselves.
A place of more than 5,000 inhabitants with nonfarming inhabitants (craftspeople, merchants, administrators), markets, and a city leader capable of compelling obedience to his decisions by force.
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