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
Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art in the British Isles to similarities with Bronze Age petroglyphs in Galicia and Valcamonica. Conversely, many rock art researchers do not consider them to be prehistoric, with Saward arguing that they were created between the 16th and 18th-centuries, when the neighbouring Trewethett Mill was operational. As evidence, she noted that labyrinths were a popular motif in folk customs at the time, and that the good state of preservation would not be present if they had prehistoric origins. Cup-and-ring marks are particularly common in this area. Petroglyphs can be found carved onto Early Neolithic passage tombs, such as Newgrange. Throughout the British Isles, most of