from those who work on Syrian and Anatolian sites, has led to some attempted explanations based on local developments, notably the development of the proto-Elamite culture, which is sometimes seen as a product of the expansion and sometimes as an adversary. The case of the southern Levant and Egypt is different again and helps to highlight the role of local cultures as receivers of the Uruk culture. In the Levant there was no stratified society with embryonic cities and bureaucracy, and therefore no strong elite to act as local intermediaries of Urukian culture and as a result Urukian influence is especially weak. In Egypt, Urukian influence seems to be limited to a few objects which were seen as prestigious or exotic (most notably the knife of Jebel el-Arak), chosen by the elite at a moment when they needed to assert their power in a developing state. It might be added that an interpretation of the relations of this period as centre/periphery interaction, although often relevant in period, risks prejudicing researchers to see decisions in an asymmetric or diffusionist fashion, and this needs to be nuanced. Thus, it increasingly appears that the regions neighbouring Lower Mesopotamia did not wait for the Urukians in order to begin an advanced process of increasing social complexity or urbanisation, as the example of the large site of Tell Brak in Syria shows, which encourages us to imagine the phenomenon from a more 'symmetrical' angle. Egypt Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and in the pre-literate Gerzean culture for Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated "deep-seated" parallels in the early stages of both cultures. Society and culture On the cusp of prehistory and history, the Uruk period can be considered 'revolutionary' and foundational in many ways. Many of the innovations which it produced were turning points in the history of Mesopotamia and indeed of the world. It is in this period that one sees the general appearance of the potter's wheel, writing, the city, and the state. There is new progress in the development of state-societies, such that specialists see fit to label them as 'complex' (in comparison with earlier societies which are said to be 'simple'). Scholarship