Neolithic Revolution as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food. Other developments found very widely are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses. These developments, sometimes called the Neolithic package, provided the basis for centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labour, more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and property ownership. The earliest known civilization developed in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (); its emergence also heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age. The relationship of the above-mentioned Neolithic characteristics
Inside the Neolithic Mind their preface, Lewis-Williams and Pearce explain their approach, and their reasons for comparing megalithic art and archaeology from the Near East and Atlantic Europe. They express their opinion that such comparisons are made possible – despite the cultural and geographical differences – because of the "universal functioning of the human brain" which unites all "Homo sapiens" and leads different societies to develop similar religious and cosmological beliefs. Chapter one, "The Revolutionary Neolithic", explores the background to this period of time, in which humans became increasingly sedentary and developed agriculture. Discussing the various different understandings of the Neolithic advocated within archaeology,