Copper Age state societies


The Chalcolithic or Copper Age is the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
It is taken to begin around the mid-5th millennium BC, and ends with the beginning of the Bronze Age proper, in the late 4th to 3rd millennium BC, depending on the region.
The Chalcolithic is part of prehistory, but based on archaeological evidence, the emergence of the first state societies can be inferred, notably in the Fertile Crescent Predynastic Egypt, and Proto-Minoan Crete, with late Neolithic societies of comparable complexity emerging in the Indus Valley, China, and along the north-western shores of the Black Sea.
The development of states—large-scale, populous, politically centralized, and socially stratified polities/societies governed by powerful rulers—marks one of the major milestones in the evolution of human societies. Archaeologists often distinguish between primary states and secondary states. Primary states evolved independently through largely internal developmental processes rather than through the influence of any other pre-existing state.
The earliest known primary states appeared in Anatolia c. 5200 BC, in Mesopotamia c. 3700 BC,, in Greece c. 3500 BC, in Egypt c. 3300 BC,
in the Indus Valley c. 3300 BC,
and in China c. 1600 BC.

List of known polities

CityLocation period
AnauTurkmenistan4000 BC to 1000 BC
AnshanIran4000 BC to 1000 BC
Bad-tibiraIraq5000 BC to 2300 BC
ÇatalhöyükTurkey7500 BC to 5700 BC
GüvercinkayasıTurkey5200 BC to 4750 BC
EblaSyria3500 BC to 1600 BC
EriduIraq5400 BC to 2050 BC
GirsuIraq5000 to 2100 BC
Heliopolis Egypt3500 BC to ~1000BC
IsinIraq3500 to 2100 BC
JerichoPalestine9600 BC to 1400 BC
KishIraq4000 to 2300 BC
KnossosGreece7000 to 1900 BC
LagashIraq4000 to 2250 BC
LaishIsrael4500 to 1350 BC
MariSyria2900 to 1759 BC
MehrgarhPakistan5500 to 2500 BC
Nekhen Egypt3500 BC to ~150BC
NippurIraq5000 to 2450 BC
SusaIran4200 to 2330 BC
RakhigarhiIndia6500 BC to 1900 BC
UgaritSyria6000 BC to 1190 BC
UrIraq4000 to 2000 BC
UrukIraq4000 to 3100 BC
Tell BrakSyria6500 to 1600 BC
Göbekli TepeTurkey9600 to 7000 BC
Aşıklı HöyükTurkey8200 to 7400 BC
Tell HalulaSyria7400 to 6200 BC