Ancient states and civilizations ; The history of archaeological research ; Studying the origins of states ; Archaeological interpretation - Catalhoyuk ; Stepping stones to civilization ; Trajectories of Cultural Development -- When is a state a state? ; A complex neolithic - Halafian and Samarran ; Hierarchy and urbanism - 'Ubaid Mesopotamia ; The Uruk world system ; Sumer and afterward ; Civilization and Pastoralism in Mesopotamia.

The development of writing in Mesopotamia ; The gift of the Nile ; The Egyptian Predynastic Period ; The unification of upper and lower Egypt ; Divinity and display in Dynastic Egypt ; why so different? Mesopotamia and the Nile -- Borders and territories of Ancient States ; The Levantine Copper and Early Bronze Ages ; Hierarchy and society in the Aegean ; Early Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations ; Palace and Countryside on Crete ; How things fall apart - The greek Dark Ages.

First Farmers in the Indus Valley ; Cities along the Indus ; Seeing what we expect - Power and display ; Sedentism and agriculture in early China ; State formation in Ancient China ; Origins of the Chinese writing system -- From human sacrifice to the Tao of Politics ; Spread of States in Mainland Southeast Asia ; Axumite Civilization in Ethiopia ; Inland Niger Delta - Hierarchy and heterarchy ; Lake Chad Basin - Settlement and complexity ; Great Zimbabwe and its successors.

Sedentism and agriculture in MesoamericaI ; The Olmec of lowland Mexico ; Teotihuacan - The first American city ; Beginnings of states in lowland Mesoamerica ; The Great May City - States ; Epigraphy - Changing views of the Maya -- Was there a Maya collapse? ; Adaptations in Pacific South America ; Pyramids and Precocity in coastal Peru ; Andean Civilization - Chavin to Chimu ; The Florescence of the Inka Empire ; Ancient States - Unity and Diversity?