Periodization

After early starts in Jarmo (red dot, circa 7500 BC), the civilization of Mesopotamia in the 7th–5th millennium
BC was centered around the Hassuna culture in the north, the Halaf culture in the northwest, the Samarra
culture in central Mesopotamia and the Ubaid culture in the southeast, which later expanded to encompass the
whole region.

Overview map in the 15th century BC showing the core territory of Assyria with its two major
cities Assur and Nineveh wedged between Babylonia downstream and the states
of Mitanni and Hatti upstream.

 Pre- and protohistory

o Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (10,000–8700 BC)
o Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8700–6800 BC)
o Jarmo (7500–5000 BC)
o Hassuna (~6000 BC)
o Samarra (~5700–4900 BC)
o Halaf cultures (~6000–5300 BC)
 o Ubaid period (~6500–4000 BC)
o Uruk period (~4000–3100 BC)
o Jemdet Nasr period (~3100–2900 BC)[27]
 Early Bronze Age
o Early Dynastic period (~2900–2350 BC)
o Akkadian Empire (~2350–2100 BC)
o Third Dynasty of Ur (2112–2004 BC)
 Middle Bronze Age
o Isin-Larsa period (19th to 18th century BC)
o First Babylonian dynasty (18th to 17th century BC)
o Minoan eruption (c. 1620 BC)
 Late Bronze Age
o Old Assyrian period (16th to 11th century BC)
o Middle Assyrian period (c. 1365–1076 BC)
o Kassites in Babylon, (c. 1595–1155 BC)
o Late Bronze Age collapse (12th to 11th century BC)
 Iron Age
o Syro-Hittite states (11th to 7th century BC)
o Neo-Assyrian Empire (10th to 7th century BC)
o Neo-Babylonian Empire (7th to 6th century BC)
 Classical antiquity
o Fall of Babylon (6th century BC)
o Achaemenid Babylonia, Achaemenid Assyria (6th to 4th century BC)
o Seleucid Mesopotamia (4th to 3rd century BC)
o Parthian Babylonia (3rd century BC to 3rd century AD)
o Osroene (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD)
o Adiabene (1st to 2nd century AD)
o Hatra (1st to 2nd century AD)
o Roman Mesopotamia (2nd to 7th centuries AD), Roman Assyria (2nd century AD)
 Late Antiquity
o Asōristān (3rd to 7th century AD)
o Muslim conquest (mid-7th century AD)