ABSTRACT
Domesticated plants and animals became an important food source for thepopulations of the Ancient Near East in the Neolithic age. They became ever more widely used during the periods which may be dated approximately from the eighth to the fourth millenium BC, and throughout all subsequent phases of Mesopotamian history. Both in the alluvial plains and in semi-arid steppes, Mesopotamian agriculture yielded surprisingly good results, and was capable of sustaining the large populations of the first city-states and the later territorial states. On this agricultural base, developed in the third millenium BC, the later, well-known Assyrian and Babylonian empires emerged.
