Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient

Mesopotamia

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Mrs. Mitzel

Mesopotamia was known as the “Fertile Crescent” because of its crescent shape and availability of fertile or “rich” soil…good for planting. It was also known as the “Cradle of Civilization” because it was the birthplace of civilization. The first major civilization was Sumer. Mesopotamia is a Greek Word for "land between two rivers." The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates.

Below the foothills and to the south, the Euphrates and Tigris rivers ran through the flat plains. The plains covered large areas of land, and no one lived there. During most of the year, the land was very hard and dry. The plains lacked trees and stones for making shelter and tools. Yet the plains held promise too.

People in some areas began to farm. One of these areas was in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in northern Mesopotamia. Mild weather and rains made the foothills a good place to farm. The trees provided wood for building shelters. There were plenty of stones in the hills for toolmaking.

In the spring, the rivers flooded bringing precious water. The people thought that perhaps farms could be built there. Driven by the need for food, people moved out of the foothills and on to the plains. This region became known as Sumer and the people who lived there, Sumerians.

Then problems arose...

By 5000 BCE, some historians believe that farmers in the Zagros foothills did not have enough land to grow food for the increasing number of people. So, villages began to suffer from food shortages.

Uncontrolled Water Supply in the River Valley

Faced with such dramatic seasonal changes, farmers had to constantly struggle to raise crops. Either they had too little water or they had too much. To succeed in growing food, they needed a way to control the water so they would have a reliable water supply year-round.

The famers who moved to Sumer faced many challenges. One of the biggest challenges was the uncontrolled water supply.

So, Sumerian farmers began to create irrigation systems to provide water for their fields. They built earth walls, called levees, along the sides of the river to prevent flooding. When the land was dry, they would poke holes in the levees. The water flowed through the holes and into the thirsty fields.

During the spring, rain and melted snow from the mountains flowed into the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, causing them to flood across the plains. But no one could be sure exactly when the floods would come. If it happened after the farmers planted their crops, their young plants would be washed away. For much of the year, the sunbaked soil was dry and hard as stone. Hot, strong winds blew thick layers of dust across the ground.

Building and Maintaining a Complex Irrigation System

As Sumerians worked together, they began to create larger communities. Between 3500 and 3000 BCE, villages grew into larger communities. Some towns in Sumer became cities with populations as great as several thousand people.

Irrigation systems provided enough water for Sumerian farmers to grow plenty of food. But a new problem arose how to maintain the irrigation system across village boundaries. The irrigation system passed through many villages as it carried water from the river to the fields. The system had to be maintained constantly. The canals had to be cleaned regularly as they became clogged with silt (very fine mud). One clogged canal could spoil the entire system. Farmers could no longer live apart, or in small groups. They were connected for miles around by the canals. They had to work together for the common good. Gradually, villages came to depend on each other to build and maintain their complex irrigation system.

Watch these videos about Anicent Irrigation

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Was the development of Agriculture good for humans?

The breakthrough of agriculture allowed humans to move from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled lifestyle of farming and herding. This marks a shift between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras.More than 15,000 years ago, hunters and gatherers began to settle in permanent villages along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as the overall climate became warmer and led to more favorable conditions for farming.

Source A

Development of Agriculture

• Important Inventions: Irrigation systems, the plow, the wheel/cart.
• These inventions helped crops to grow in the difficult climate which led to a surplus of food. The surplus led to a system of trading. Sumer had limited resources, so they needed to barter with other lands.

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Was the development of agriculture good for humans?

Top ten of the “50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel:

1. The printing press, 1430s
2. Electricity, late 19th century
3. Penicillin, 1928
4. Semiconductor electronics, mid-20th century
5. Optical lenses, 13th century
6. Paper, second century
7. The internal combustion engine, late 19th century
8. Vaccination, 1796
9. The internet, 1960s
10. The steam engine, 1712

In your Social Studies notebook, make your own list of the greatest innovations throughout time. Then write a statement explaining why these specific innovations appear on your list. Visit this website to help guide your answer!

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Time to pause and reflect with your teacher. Wait for further instructions before continuing on to the next slide.

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How did environmental changes and new technologies affect the development of agriculture?

Source B

Source C

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Time to pause and reflect with your teacher. Wait for further instructions before continuing on to the next slide.

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Source A

How did the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia lead to the development of writing?

As agriculture become more complex, humans began to create some of the habits, customs, structures, and techniques that we associate with civilizations. The Sumer people of Mesopotamia developed ways to record information about crops and animals that they later transformed into writing. Let’s look at and analyze Sumerian writing sources! Complete the graphic organizer for Supporting Question 2 as you explore the next two pages!

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Source B

Watch these videos to help you better undersand Ancient Writing

Source C

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Time to pause and reflect with your teacher. Wait for further instructions before continuing on to the next slide.

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WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES OF AGRICULTURE FOR HUMANS?

Early agriculture’s toll on human health

Read the articles on the left hand side and review the charts on the next two slides to answer the following questions in your Social Studies notebook: Agriculture led to_________________ I believe agriculture was_______________ As a result of the development of agriculture, humans were able to_________________

Impact and consequences of early agriculture

Environmental impacts of agricultural modifications

Additional Resources: The worst mistake in the history of the human race

Is farming the root of all evil?

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Click on image below to fill out your observations about Paleolithic and Neolithic life.

What were the consequences of agriculture for humans?

Source B

Source A

This graph shows the rise in population that occurred after the development of agriculture. Although the graph doesn’t show it, the world population had been steady for a thousand years before approximately 10,000 BCE.

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Tying it all together

What were the consequences of agriculture for humans?

Click on the picture of MEsopotamia to make a copy of the Inquiry Summative for this unit. Complete as Directed

Source C

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