ABSTRACT
The period from 3000 BCE to 500 CE was at once a formative period for today’s societies and a time of relatively recent and accelerating human development. By 3000 BCE agriculture was rapidly spreading to uncultivated lands. Agriculture both speeded and slowed migration. Larger populations resulting from the development of agriculture were better able to move in directions they chose, through force of numbers. Yet the work of farming caused families to become tied to land they knew well, and made movement risky and often unwarranted. Other important developments of this period included wider use of metals, the expansion of commerce, and development of large-scale, organized religion.
