Urban revolution

The emergence of cities and the social, economic, and political changes associated with them, including new forms of labor, governance, and social hierarchy.

Uruk: An ancient Mesopotamian city that became one of the earliest large urban centers. Its growth exemplifies early city formation in southern Mesopotamia.
Neolithic Revolution: The transition in many regions from foraging toward farming and animal domestication. Agriculture made sustained population concentration and food storage more feasible.
Settlement hierarchy: The ranking of settlements by size, functions, and influence within a region. Urban centers occupy higher positions in networks of smaller settlements.
Writing: A system of visible marks used to represent language or record information. Administrative needs in early cities encouraged some of the earliest writing systems.
Urban revolution debate: Scholarly debate over whether city emergence was a distinct revolution or a gradual, uneven process. The label itself raises questions about how abrupt and transformative urbanization was.
Mesopotamia: A historical region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, home to some of the earliest cities and states. Its river valleys supported dense settlement and early urban institutions.
Agricultural surplus: Food produced beyond the immediate needs of the people who grow it. Stored surplus could support people working outside food production.
Urbanization: The growth in the share of a population living in urban areas. It describes the broader demographic process that urban revolutions begin.
Taxation: The compulsory collection of resources by a governing authority. Urban states could gather agricultural goods and labor through organized extraction.
V. Gordon Childe: An Australian archaeologist who proposed influential models of prehistoric social change, including the Urban Revolution. Childe gave the term its influential archaeological formulation.

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