Beginning in Mesopotamia, states produced sufficient agricultural surplus so that full-time ruling elites and military commanders could emerge. The development of first city-states, and then empires, allowed warfare to change dramatically.
The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is less one of technology than of organization. In Japan, the ancient period can be taken to end with the rise of feudalism in the Kamakura period in the 12-13th century. In India, the ancient period ends with the decline of the Gupta Empire (6th century) and the beginning of the Islamic conquests from the 8th century. In China, it can also be seen as ending with the growing role of mounted warriors needed to counter the ever-growing threat from the north in the 5th century and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in 617. In Europe and the Near East, the end of antiquity is often equated with the fall of Rome in 476, and the wars of the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium in its Southwestern Asian and North African borders and the beginnings of the Muslim conquests in the 7th century. Ancient warfare is war as conducted from the beginnings of recorded history to the end of the ancient period.
