Hi all,

I did a search and found this question, but sadly it wasn't answered. I thought I'd try my luck, hoping that somebody knows!

My understanding is that there were developments of permanent settlements during the neolithic, such as the ancient ruins at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dating back 12,000 years. However, it's not until the Early Bronze Age in 3000BCE that we start to see actual civilisations emerge.

I recognise that 'civilisation' is a bit of a poor term - after all, it's hard for us to know much about a society that didn't leave any writing, and writing didn't really emerge until the Early Bronze Age around 5,000 years ago. I do recognise that places like Beidha existed almost 10,000 years ago and were large settlements, but in terms of a large populated city I tend to feel like Uruk in the early bronze age best fits the bill at 45,000 souls (please note all this is lifted from wikipedia).

So what was it about the Copper Age that prohibited the development of major cities? Was it the lack of writing, and if so why is writing linked to the Bronze age? Or is it more that the Bronze Age occurred precisely because of the development of cities, and these cities came into being because of other reasons?

I guess what I'm asking is - why did it take so long for cities to emerge, and what were the critical factors that lead to them? I feel like one of them should be the development of Bronze but I can't really pinpoint why (possibly because I am biased by the whole 'Stone-Bronze-Iron' system, which maybe an artificial distinction).

I appreciate the question is vague, so I apologise. If you have an answer that is approximate but not quite answering what you read as the question, please feel free anyway. I'm starved for knowledge on this subject.