Some of the earliest human civilizations arose in southern Mesopotamia, in what is now southern Iraq, in the fourth millennium B.C.E. ●In the second half of the millennium, in the south around the city of Uruk, there was an enormous escalation in the area occupied by permanent settlements. ●A large part of that increase took place in Uruk itself, which became a real urban center surrounded by a set of secondary settlements. ●●But Uruk’s dominant size in the entire region, far that of other settlements, indicates that it was a regional center and a true city. ●Indeed, it was the first city in human history.The vast majority of its population remained active in agriculture, even those people living within the city itself. ●But a small segment of the urban society started to specialize in nonagricultural tasks as a result of the city’s role as a regional center. ●Within the productive sector, there was a growth of a variety of specialist craftspeople. ●Early in the Uruk period, the use of undecorated utilitarian pottery was probably the result of specialized mass production. ●In an early fourth-millennium level of the Eanna archaeological site at Uruk, a pottery style appears that is most characteristic of this process, the so-called beveled-rim bowl. ●It is a rather shallow bowl that was crudely made in a mold; hence, in only a limited number of standard sizes. ●For some unknown reason, many were discarded, often still , and thousands have been found all over the Near East. ●The beveled-rim bowl is one of the most telling diagnostic finds for identifying an Uruk-period site. ●Of importance is the fact that it was produced rapidly in large amounts, most likely by specialists in a central location.A variety of documentation indicates that certain goods, once made by a family member as one of many duties, were later made by skilled artisans. ●Certain images depict groups of people, most likely women, involved in weaving textiles, an activity we know from later third-millennium texts to have been vital in the economy and to have been centrally administered. ●Also, a specialized metal-producing workshop may have been excavated in a small area at Uruk. ●It contained a number of channels lined by a sequence of holes, about 50 centimeters deep, all showing burn marks and filled with ashes. ●This has been as the remains of a workshop where molten metal was scooped up from the channel and poured into molds in the holes. ●Some type of mass production by specialists were involved here.Objects themselves suggest that they were the work of skilled professionals. ●In the late Uruk period, there first appeared a type of object that remained characteristic for Mesopotamia throughout its entire history: the cylinder seal.●This was a small cylinder, usually no more than 3 centimeters high and 2 centimeters in diameter, of shell, bone, faience, or various types of stones, on which a scene was carved into the surface.●When rolled over a soft material----primarily the clay of bullae, tablets, or clay lumps attached to boxes, jars, or door bolts----the scene would appear in relief, easily .●The technological knowledge needed to carved it was far superior to that for stamp seals, which had happened in the early Neolithic period.●From the first appearance of cylinder seals, the carved scenes could be highly elaborate and refined, indicating the work of specialist stone-cutters. ●Similarly, the late Uruk period shows the first monumental art, relief, and statuary in the round, made with a degree of mastery that only a professional could have produced.