goodwill of the latter was necessary to insure the prosperity of society. With respect to this development of a more centralised control of resources, the tablets of Late Uruk reveal the existence of institutions that played an important role in society and economy and undoubtedly in contemporary politics. Whether these institutions were temples or palaces is debated. In any case, both institutions were dominant in the later periods of Lower Mesopotamia's history. Only two names relating to these institutions and their personnel have been deciphered: a large authority indicated by the sign NUN, at Uruk, which possessed an administrator in chief, a messenger, some workers, etc.; and another authority indicated by the signs AB NI+RU, at Jemdet Nasr, which had a high priest (SANGA), administrators, priests, etc. Their scribes produced administrative documents relating to the management of land, the distribution of rations (barley, wool, oil, beer, etc.) for workers, which include slaves, and listing of the heads of livestock. These institutions could control the production of prestige goods, redistribution, long-distance trade, and the management of public works. They were able to support increasingly specialised workers. The largest institutions contained multiple 'departments' devoted to a single activity (cultivation of fields, herds, etc.). But there is no proof that these institutions played a role in the supervision of the majority of the population in the process of centralising production. The economy rested on a group of domains (or 'houses' / 'households', É in Sumerian) of different sizes, from large institutions to modest family groups, that can be classified in modern terms as 'public' or 'private' and which were in constant interaction with one another. Some archives were probably produced in a private context in residences of Susa, Habuba Kabira, and Jebel Aruda. But these documents represent relatively rudimentary accounting, indicating a smaller scale of economic activity. One study carried out at Abu Salabikh in lower Mesopotamia indicated that the production was distributed between different households of different sizes, wealth, and power, with the large institutions at the top. Research into the causes of the emergence of these political structures has not produced any theory which is widely accepted. Research into explanations is heavily influenced by evolutionist frameworks and is in fact more interested in the period before the appearance of the state, which was the product of a long process and preceded by the appearance of 'chieftainships.' This process was not a