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 "popular tone and style" and use of the "contentious" three mode-model of trance states, a model he dismisses as a "myth". In "Archaeology", the publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, Michael Balter positively reviewed "Inside the Neolithic Mind", praising its "superb writing" and "lavishly illustrated descriptions" of archaeological sites. Although he notes that most archaeologists would concur that Neolithic people probably believed in a spirit world, he expressed his belief that "they may balk at the idea" that the act of climbing down step ladders at Çatalhöyük symbolized the descent into the underworld or that hearths in the floors