TY - BOOK AU - Maisels, Charles Keith TI - Early civilizations of the old world: the formative histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China SN - 9780415109765 U1 - 930 PY - 2001/// CY - London PB - Routledge KW - Civilization N1 - HOW DOES THE PAST ILLUMINATE THE PRESENT..................................... The emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline..................................... The lands of the Bible (= Near East)..................................... Social archaeology..................................... Childe's checklist..................................... The present illuminated: paths. of the past. spirals to the future..................................... SEMA-TAWY: THE LAND OF THE PAPYRUS AND LOTUS..................................... The place..................................... The time..................................... Late Palaeolithic ..................................... Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic..................................... State formation process..................................... Childe's checklist..................................... THE LEVANT AND MESOPOTAMIA..................................... The place..................................... The time..................................... Syria and the Levant..................................... To the heartland of cities in Sumer, via Hassuna. Samarra and Halaf village farming cultures ..................................... The social order..................................... THE INDUS/HARAPPAN/SARASVATI CIVILIZATION..................................... The place..................................... The time..................................... Social evolution: Neolithic to Chalcolithic at Mebrgarh ..................................... Later agricultural subsistence..................................... Urban society ..................................... The misrepresentation of the Greater Indus oecumene ..................................... Class stratification..................................... The fall..................................... Palaeoethnology: kinship to caste..................................... THE CENTRAL KINGDOM, ZHONG-GUO..................................... The place..................................... The time..................................... The Neolithic clusters..................................... Final Neolithic to Chalcolithic..................................... The Chalcolithic: Longshan ..................................... The Chalcolithic: Hongshan ..................................... Clanship and the territorial state..................................... Bronze Age urbanism..................................... States: The three dynasties..................................... The late Shang capital at Anyang..................................... The earlier Shang capital at Zhengzhou..................................... Western Zhou ..................................... Childe's checklist..................................... CONCLUSION: THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL COMPLEXITY..................................... How useful do Childe's criteria turn out to be..................................... Childe's other revolution..................................... Political economies..................................... Politics and the state..................................... Social evolution..................................... ER -