The Birth of Civilisation - Rise of Uruk (6500 BC to 3200 BC) 

I hate being a farmer. Hunter-gatherers encircle my field and yell, "go wheat boy, go!"

I love that we both don’t upload proper videos in months and months and then randomly upload on the same day. People might start to think we are conspiring. Nice vid! Looking forward to delving into it

i was born in 7325 BC, and damn this brings back memories. things were so different back then

Told my wife I was watching "The Rise of Uruk". She wants to know when Saruman is going to show up.

Oh man this weekend just got a whole lot better. My grandmother was born in the Mesopotamian marsh’s. Greetings from Mesopotamia Iraq 🇮🇶 to everyone watching ♥️

The earliest known writing found on pottery: World's Greatest Dad

About 10 years ago, the ancient gold treasures of Ur went on a museum tour. I caught it in Houston. I’m here to say, those ancient craftsmen did incredibly intricate work 6000 years ago.

I’ve watched the series a couple times now and I must say, well done Charles. You’ve done good on us all

I am so incredibly grateful for the content you make. I've had trouble sleeping since forever and one of the few things that help me sleep is listening to podcasts and videos like these. Your videos, especially those in this series, not only help me sleep so much better but are of such high quality and are so interesting to listen to that it takes me several nights to get through them. I start watching the first night, fall asleep, and the next night I go back to the last part that I can remember and continue to watch from there. I can't emphasise enough how positive of an effect discovering your channel has had on my sleep, and I'm so happy that the subject of your videos is history - a subject which I can never get enough of. So from someone with lots of love for history, and who's had such difficulty sleeping for so many years, thank you so much. You are the best.

Some of the best history content on RU-vid. 10/10, loved the whole series.

I just LOVE history! I don’t see how anyone finds it boring?!! Fascinating stuff.

A RU-vid channel made this?? Wow, I’m impressed. The quality is more sophisticated than the usual style on this platform

All these towns thousands of years ago and still bigger than the town i grew up in.

Nothing like watching these to fill in all the gaps from the mind numbing awful history classes I took in various institutions....

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve gone to sleep listening to this series. I try to stay awake and listen to it all because it’s so fascinating, but it’s also very soothing.

Simply stunning, some of the best content on RU-vid, thank you for all your hard work 👍

Reasons why I watch: 80% I Love history 10%Production qauality 10% voice is relaxing AF

Amazing how these cultures lasted for thousands of years. Goes to show how the cultures of today are just a couple more in the history of humanity

Beautiful! Both the contents, the narrative and the images are fantastic. Great job! Thank you.

Considering the fact there's little or no financial incentive to create these videos, they are pretty amazing!

Thank you guys for taking up the mantle of proper history documentaries! Fantastic production value too, good editing, and the narration was at the proper key for this topic. Also thanks for covering this particular time period as proper info is so hard to find on this.

Not at all what I expected. I thought the Uruks were pure warriors who came mainly from Isengard under the rule of Sauramon the White. I'm very surprised that they had these statues and other artifacts of a real culture. I guess they needed homes and hobbies when not raiding. Thanks for sharing!

This is so amazing. Here I am enjoying learning about people who's efforts made everything around us possible thousands of years later. Thank you

This is amazing work. I'm discovering and appreciating some extraordinary RU-vidrs like you who present a fact-based, unsensational but fascinating, in-depth view of poorly understood parts of history. It's an amazing thing to find videos like this that aren't dryly dull and suitable only for specialists but avoid simplifying uncertainties to draw in viewers.

I love learning about the bronze/pre-pottery eras. They are so fascinating

I've just prepared my breakfast and the first thing to watch I see is this video, 52 minutes after uploading. Feels damn good, man

Wasn't expecting a shot of my home city in this video! Great series, I'm definitely going to subscribe

I need more! D: This is whole serise was amazingly presented. I have a hard time trying to put things into a timeline and you helped immensely.

Hell yeah, new episode! Looking forward to this one.

At LAST, part 3 - I am going to make myself another coffee and sit down to watch this documentary with my undivided attention. And yes, I am calling this whole series a documentary now because you've gone far beyond just "history video maker" with the depth and production on your Birth Of Civilization videos.

Recently subbed: Cracking episode - thoroughly researched and beautifully presented as always! Greetings from Delphi, Greece.

You are AMAZING brother!!! All your work is just phenomenal! Thank you so much!

I love all of this so far. Great visuals, great narration and very informative. Glad I found this channel!

What blows my mind everytime is how long ago this was and how long these periods lasted.

Excellent work . Thanks for making this ...

It's amazing just how far back human civilization really stretches.

Your series on birth of civilisation is outstanding. As someone said, this channel, history time and fall of civilisation are most informative channels on yt, regarding popular history. You can't find as good content on discovery or other channels like this. You should create four curiosity stream.

Absolutely WOWED i WANT to keep learning from this series

I can't thank you enough for the narration of this valuable opportunity to inlite myself, so proud of gathering knowledge from this videos from the real historic world and human civilisation survival !!!

Thanks for this. Like the rest of your stuff, it's well done and thoroughly great.

It's a great thing to see the notification of a new episode!

Just finished watching this series. Absolutely amazing, i want to say that this is at the same level as the ancient history lectures i attended at college. Well, not quite, your work is even better because it's up to date! (i attended those lectures between 2012 and 2013).

Very impressive production! Great editing with the pictures maps etc.

This is one of the best series I've ever seen! Do you plan on doing something similar with other early civilizations, like Egypt, Indus Valley Civilization, China or Norte Chico?

I was seriously looking forward to this one!

I loved this series. Thank you

Thank you so much for this. Loved the video

Sources for this video if you want to do some further reading! General Resources: Chris Scarre (2018) The Human Past. Fourth Edition. Marc Van De Mieroop (2016) A History of the Ancient Near East. Third Edition. Amanda H. Podany (2014) The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction. Fuad Safar, Mohammad Ali Mustafa and Seton Lloyd (1981) Eridu. Harriet Crawford (2004) Sumer and the Sumerians. 2nd Edition. Guillermo Algaze (2008) Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilisation: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape. Robert Adams (1981) Heartland of Cities. The University of Chicago Press. Nicola Crusemann, Margarete Van Ess, Markus Hilgert, Beate Salje and Timothy Potts (2019) Uruk: The Worlds First City. English edition. References: Rollefson (2011) The Greening of the Badlands: Pastoral Nomads and the “Conclusion” of Neolithization in the Southern Levant. Paleorient, 37(1): 101-109. Akkermans and Duistermaat (1997) Of Storage and Nomads: the clay sealings from late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syrua. Paleorient, 22(2): 17-44. Akkermans (2000) Old and New prespectives on the Origins of the Halaf Culture. Spataro and Fletcher (2010) Centralisation or Regional Identity in the Halaf Period? Examining interactions with Fine painted ware production. Paleorient, 36(2): 96-116. Healey and Campbell (2014) Producing adornment: Evidence of different levels of expertise in the production of obsidian items of adornment at two late Neolithic communities in northern Mesopotamia. Journal of Lithic Studies, 1 (2). Pournelle (2003) Marshland of Cities: Deltaic landscapes and the evolution of early Mesopotamian Civilization. PhD Thesis, University of California, San Diego. Kennedy (2012) Commensality and Labour in Terminal Ubaid Northern Mesopotamia. Journal for Ancient Studies, 2: 125-156. Van Buren (1949) Discoveries at Eridu. Orientalia, 18(1): 123-124. Emberling (2016) Structures of Authority: Feasting and Political Practise in the Earliest Mesopotamian States. In “Social Theory in Archaeology and Ancient History”, edited by Geoff Emberling. McMahon (2019) Early Urbanisation in Northern Mesopotamia. Journal of Archaeological Research, 28: 289-337. Oates et al. (2007) Early Mesopotamian urbanism: a new view from the north. Antiquity, 81: 585-600. McMahon et al. (2011) Late Chalcolithic mass graves at Tell Brak, Syria, and violent conflict during the growth of early city-states. Journal of Field Archaeology, 36(3): 201-2020. Lawler (2006) North Versus South, Mesopotamian Style. Science, 312: 1458-1463. Nissen et al. (2003) Archaic Bookkeeping: Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East. pg. 28-29. Englund (2004) Proto-Cuneiform Account-Books and Journals. In “Creating Economic Order: Record-keeping, Standardization and the Development of Accounting in the Ancient Near East”, pg. 32-33. Woods (2010) The Earliest Mesopotamian Writing. In “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond”, edited by Christopher Woods, Emily Teeter and Geoff Emberling. Stauder (2010) The Earliest Egyptian Writing. In “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond”, edited by Christopher Woods, Emily Teeter and Geoff Emberling.

This channel is a phenomenon. Thank you for everything.

Anyone else unable to get enough of ancient civilizations and cultures. No matter how much I learn I just wanna learn more. Theyre all unbelievably fascinating to say the very least.

Many thanks for the series! I absolutely love that. It would be great if there was a written summary of its key elements with dates. However, I understand that a whole book (to which you link) might be better.

Literally my favorite way to spend an hour

omg im so excited ive been waiting for this to come out 🙈

Oh goodness, I have successfully found a new history channel, what an effort. Will start watching now, thanks

I really enjoyed this video. Super interesting and informative 😁

Keep up the amazing work and art along with the channel good sir. We love the education and narrators.

Whoo hoo! Just as I’m cycling back through my Bronze Age (and Neolithic) podcasts, new Bronze Age content!

Calm speech and rich histroy content, THANK YOU for your great work!

Very informative with a lot to consider with early civilizations.

This was an awesome series! Please make a detailed video on the Indus Valley civilisation too, if possible

These are incredibly well-made and well-narrated videos.

Wow, that was really well done.

The civilization around Mediterenian Sea are always interesting. I have been in Knossos of Crete and was so impressed about Art, culture and so on of that time more than 2000 years old civilization. Best wishes from Stockholm - Sweden

Great video! This period of history is so interesting

breakfast, coffe and some history. this sunday is starting strong

This video is more informative and has higher production quality than most of the documentaries on TV.

I think being near the sea or ocean gave Ur and Uruk a viable source of protein to add to their agricultural efforts. Boats and fishing don't seem to feature much in archeology, but it is a year-round resource.

Can't wait to see this!

Loving this one thanks for sharing very information blessed love to all knowledge is power hopefully everyone pays attention keep up the good work 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲

More than I say , thank you in sharing your. history review .. Details during past seven millenium .. and more.. so. exciting and educational. So good to me. I. keep. myself dedicated to learning civilizations before our current era.

Thank you! Really good written manuscript. Engaging and informative.👍🙏🏼

Love these videos, the research and objectivity in them is refreshing in a world full of biases and sensationalism.

I'm going to do some work around the house. 'The Histocrat has uploaded a new video.' I guess the work can be done 1:16:46 from now.

Thank you Free Documentary in sharing your video. A lot I learned added since I did my high school studies in 1965-67 WORLD HISTORY. I JUST LIKE IT. THANK YOU.

If you ever find yourself in need of copper in 3000 BC Uruk stay far away from Ea Nasir, his copper is extremely low quality

Been waiting for this! Love listening about these alien long-gone cultures when falling asleep or on walks. This whole series is very neatly written and well-researched.

Charles - these videos are absolutely superb. Well done. Well produced, narrated and illustrated. I'd also like to say that Ettore Mazza's art is excellent and extremely helpful in trying to visualise the place and time.

I never get to watch your videos but they are a fantastic listen. Thanks for all the work

Wonderful documentary! Congratulations 👏

I've loved this series, really cleared up some misconceptions I had, and strung together a lot of what I knew with a lot if what I didn't in a cohesive way. Your Cult of the Skull video especially filled in a lot of gaps, and really left one with an idea of just how 'human' we still behave, despite massive changes in how we live our lives. Any inspiration on your next project

For your views of a modern city, you showed Melbourne, Australia. They included Princes Bridge, Federation Square and The Bourke Street Mall. Nice.

Real, sourced history, more scholarly than popular (this is a compliment). Absolutely splendid. Subbed, obviously.

Thank you for not having loud distracting music

This is excellent and masterfully researched and presented. One question I have is the map choice used throughout. The chosen map shows the current Persian Gulf shoreline and present river courses. Was that map used instead of one featuring the ancient shoreline(s) and river routes for a specific purpose, i.e. you wished to only convey the locations as archeological sites and not in their historical contexts?

Wooo! I’m going to enjoy this with my coffee 🥰🥰.. like a brain gift for the morning!! Thanks again for all the work you put into these, I watch and rewatch all the time!!

Outstanding! Thank you.

I can surely say that this Is the best history channel that I've discovered so far

These videos are polished and presented like something backed by a large media entity. I've been really curious about the gap between early man and ancient civilisation lately and couldn't find anything like this on any streaming services. Awesome work man, I hope they're throwing deals at you.

I learned a lot. Early human history is fascinating.

Fascinating and well done.

-gentle bongo drumming begins- every tap on the drum symbolizes each of the succinct facts and crystallized analyses thanks

I love these, I'm dying for one about the Indus Valley civ (Mohejo-daro/Harrapa) but I realize that's a tall order. I'm going to try to become a patron so maybe that'll help! I also know some people for original music and animation, nothing fancy but food for thought...

Engagement for based algorithm; But Im going to save the actual listen for when Im at work monday. Been waiting on this one~

Thank you. Excellent on all levels.

Nice presentation, Good Stuff 👍

I enjoy learning about very early civilizations.

I love your work. Can't wait for the episode on Irish druids, as was promised at the end of your Druids video a while ago!

Very interesting! Thank you.

Amazing series!

Nice, I know what I'll be falling asleep to tonight.