Prehistoric Mesopotamian culture whose painted pottery and irrigation-farming villages laid the social groundwork for the world's first cities.
Gave rise, in the south, to the urban Uruk period; the Ubaid cultural sphere is generally seen as the direct antecedent of Sumerian civilization.
Classic survey of Mesopotamian prehistory and history, covering the Ubaid period in depth.
Archaeological synthesis of Ubaid-through-Uruk Mesopotamia.