During the Neolithic period in Europe, farming (the raising of cattle and cultivation of cereals) spread from West Asia to Greece and central, then western Europe.  By around 2000 BC, most of Europe was using bronze to cast tools and weapons, and important palace-centred states such as those of Mycenaean Greece and Minoan Crete arose.  In central and western Europe, Bronze Age societies gave birth to war-like elites and flourishing metalcraft.