(legend for the map here)
Agriculture did develop between 10000 and 5000 BC.
The earliest known wall is in Jericho and dates from the 8th millennium BC:
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, 8350 BC to 7370 BC. Sometimes it is called Sultanian. The site is a 40,000 square metre settlement surrounded by a stone wall, with a stone tower in the centre of one wall. This is so far the oldest wall ever to be discovered, thus suggesting some kind of social organization, even if based on charisma. The town contained round mud-brick houses, yet no street planning. The 400-2000 dwellers used domesticated emmer wheat, barley and pulses and hunted wild animals.
The difference between a town and a city seems to be division of labour and organised government, and the first cities seem to date from the Bronze age (e.g., Mohenjo-Daro). But metalworking (copper) is much older than that, so apparently that didn't require or lead to complex social organisation or division of labour?
Now, to call the last 5000 to 10000 years "a particular historical phase" seems a bit much. And consider that "kings" were replaced by "republics" in various places around 500 BC. Though maybe by "kings and armies" you meant "states" (see the map above). "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
...You're going to have to be a bit more specific about what happened 7k-10k years ago
Agriculture happened.
Once a food surplus is achieved you have to have a place to put it (pottery), a way of telling whose it is ("writing"), someone to keep track of it all (bureaucrats) ....
and an annual, all-together-now, 'making of the whoopie' to make sure the seeds germinate ... at least that's the excuse and
LO!
Religion is born. A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
When major climate change took place after the last ice age c.11,000 BC much of the earth became subject to long dry seasons. These conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. These plants tended to put more energy into producing seeds than into woody growth. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time. The practice of agriculture first began around 8000 BC in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia (part of present day Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Jordan which was then greener). This region was home to the greatest diversity of annual plants and according to one study 32 of the 56 largest grass seeds. The first crops to be domesticated were all crops of edible seeds, wheat, barley, peas, lentils, chickpeas, bitter vetch and flax. These plants were all readily storable, easy to grow and grew quickly. They had to undergo few genetic changes to be of use to farmers, their wild relatives remaining easily recognisable to this day. Crop domestication took place independently in geographically distant human populations. In China, rice and millet were domesticated by 7500 BC, followed by the beans mung, soy and azuki. In the Sahel region of Africa local rice and sorghum were domestic by 5000 BC. Local crops were domesticated independently in West Africa and possibly in New Guinea and Ethiopia. Three regions of the Americas independently domesticated corn, squashes, potato and sunflowers. Humans in many different areas of the earth took up farming in what is, set against the 500,000 year age span of modern humans, a very short time. This is the most convincing evidence that global climate change, and the resultant adaptations by vegetation, were the cause of the beginning of agriculture.
The practice of agriculture first began around 8000 BC in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia (part of present day Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Jordan which was then greener). This region was home to the greatest diversity of annual plants and according to one study 32 of the 56 largest grass seeds.
The first crops to be domesticated were all crops of edible seeds, wheat, barley, peas, lentils, chickpeas, bitter vetch and flax. These plants were all readily storable, easy to grow and grew quickly. They had to undergo few genetic changes to be of use to farmers, their wild relatives remaining easily recognisable to this day. Crop domestication took place independently in geographically distant human populations.
In China, rice and millet were domesticated by 7500 BC, followed by the beans mung, soy and azuki. In the Sahel region of Africa local rice and sorghum were domestic by 5000 BC. Local crops were domesticated independently in West Africa and possibly in New Guinea and Ethiopia. Three regions of the Americas independently domesticated corn, squashes, potato and sunflowers.
Humans in many different areas of the earth took up farming in what is, set against the 500,000 year age span of modern humans, a very short time. This is the most convincing evidence that global climate change, and the resultant adaptations by vegetation, were the cause of the beginning of agriculture.
