section_path: History/Neolithic period
section_name: Neolithic period
paragraph_text: Neolithic period
  
  During the Neolithic period, human societies underwent major cultural and economic changes, including the development of agriculture, the formation of sedentary societies and fixed settlements, increasing population densities, and the use of pottery and more complex tools.
  
  Sedentary agriculture led to the development of property rights, domestication of plants and animals, and larger family sizes. It also provided the basis for an external centralized state. By producing a large surplus of food, more division of labor was realized, which enabled people to specialize in tasks other than food production. Early states were characterized by highly stratified societies, with a privileged and wealthy ruling class that was subordinate to a monarch. The ruling classes began to differentiate themselves through forms of architecture and other cultural practices that were different from those of the subordinate laboring classes.
  
  In the past, it was suggested that the centralized state was developed to administer large public works systems (such as irrigation systems) and to regulate complex economies. However, modern archaeological and anthropological evidence does not support this thesis, pointing to the existence of several non-stratified and politically decentralized complex societies.