Copper Age state societies

This article is about the period from 5000 BC to 3300 BC. For the succeeding article, see List of Bronze Age states.

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.

Painting of a Copper Age walled settlement, Los Millares, Spain

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 (notably Sumer) Predynastic Egypt, and Proto-Minoan Crete, with late Neolithic societies of comparable complexity emerging in the Indus Valley (Mehrgarh), 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 (or pristine) 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

Further information: List of cities of the ancient Near East

See also: List of state leaders in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC

City	period
Anau	4000 BC to 1000 BC
Anshan	4000 BC to 1000 BC
Bad-tibira	5000 BC to 2300 BC
Çatalhöyük	6700 BC to 5700 BC
Güvercinkayası	5200 BC to 4750 BC
Ebla	3500 BC to 1600 BC
Eridu	5400 BC to 2050 BC
Girsu	5000 to 2100 BC
Heliopolis (Lower Egypt)	3500 BC to ~1000BC
Isin	3500 to 2100 BC
Jericho	9600 BC to 1400 BC
Kish	4000 to 2300 BC
Knossos	7000 to 1900 BC
Lagash	4000 to 2250 BC
Laish	4500 to 1350 BC
Mari	2900 to 1759 BC
Mehrgarh	5500 to 2500 BC
Nekhen (Upper Egypt)	3500 BC to ~150BC
Nippur	5000 to 2450 BC
Susa	4200 to 2330 BC
Rakhigarhi	6500 BC to 1900 BC
Ugarit	6000 BC to 1190 BC
Ur	4000 to 2000 BC
Uruk	4000 to 3100 BC

See also

• 4th millennium BC
• Cradle of civilization
• List of Bronze Age states
• List of Iron Age states