State and urban societies, along with writing, are relatively recent phenomena in the human story, and are first recorded around 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia, followed by Egypt, the Indus and China. In this module we will be looking at four of the very early known state-level, urban societies
where power and control are tied into these bases. We will be looking at models and theories that consider why these unequal societies emerged, as well as how they developed. Specifically Irrigation Models of State Development and Power of Three Domains Model. This is a critique of the literature with 30% describing it and 70% critiquing it.
