With people cultivating plants and domesticating animals, they were able to stay in one place and form permanent villages. Eventually, those small settlements grew into early cities, where a lot of the characteristics of civilization —such as concentrations of population, monumental architecture, communication, division of labor, and different social and economic classes—developed.
As he explains, urban societies developed independently in Lower Mesopotamia, an area in what is now southern Iraq where the early civilization of Sumer was located, and Upper Mesopotamia, which includes Northern Iraq and part of present-day western Syria. One factor that helped civilization to develop in both places was the climate of Mesopotamia, which 6, to 7, years ago was wetter than that part of the Middle East is today.
Additionally, he notes, the marsh provided a connection to sea routes on the Persian Gulf, which made it possible for people who lived in the south to eventually develop long-distance trade with other places. They also had access to mountains and forests, where they could hunt for game and cut down trees for wood. Their areas also had land routes to places to the north beyond the mountains, where they could obtain materials such as obsidian , a type of rock that can be used in jewelry or for making cutting tools.
But they also created gardens shaded by date palms, where they cultivated a wide variety of crops including beans, peas, lentils, cucumbers, leeks, lettuce and garlic, as well as fruit such as grapes, apples, melons and figs.
They also milked sheep, goats and cows to make butter, and slaughtered them for meat. Eventually, the agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia led to what Diamond describes as the next big step in progress, the Urban Revolution. Categories Situated in a vast expanse of delta between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamia was the wellspring from which modern societies emerged.
Post navigation What is the oldest civilization on the planet? Warm, dry and favorable Mediterranean climate, a sea of bright blue attract people from all over the world. Even the very name of the Mediterranean Sea is rich in history. Interesting Facts. The Sumerians called themselves. Ancient Mesopotamia is also called Mesopotamia.
This is a historical and geographical region located in the valley of two rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates. Its climate was characterized by heterogeneity. Mesopotamia climate features. Managing Out in the Public Sector What were the effects of the harlem renaissance Why is mesopotamia called the cradle of civilization why is mesopotamia called the cradle of civilization.
Why is mesopotamia called the cradle of civilization Video Ancient Mesopotamia - National Geographic. To understand why Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization, it's important have understand exactly what civilization is. This is more difficult than you might think. Scholars still debate exactly what must be present in a culture for it to be considered a civilization. For the most part, a group of people who live together in a single place, and have social, political, economic and religious structure qualifies as a civilization.
The setting is usually a city, and the people there use technology to carry out economic activity. The fruits of this labor are divided among the population by a ruling class, which may be religious in nature, political or both.
The division of goods isn't necessarily even, which leads to social classes -- the haves, the have-nots and those in the middle. Civilization, then, is the organization of all of the systems people use to interact with one another -- whether that's to the benefit of all, as in the protection of an organized army, or to the detriment of the people, for example when a few are able to exploit the work of the masses to grow more powerful.
By this definition, Mesopotamia was indeed a true civilization. Beginning around B. Agriculture drew the earliest people to the banks of Mesopotamia's rivers. But as they figured out how to reroute some of the water through canals, they were able to irrigate fields farther away. With a food supply capable of sustaining large numbers of people, cities began to develop. We might imagine these early city dwellers were visionaries. But the truth is much less dramatic.
Mesopotamia became a civilized powerhouse largely out of necessity. Take, for example, their writing. The Sumerians produced some of the earliest writing discovered, on baked clay tablets. These tablets captured the more mundane aspects of life, such as accounting and tax records.
This writing eventually led to phonetic writing , which uses symbols to represent sounds rather than objects. This is a good example of how the civilization of Mesopotamia developed. Necessity bore invention, which after refinement, lead to the organized integration of these creations -- civilization. So now we know that the Sumerians and other Mesopotamians developed writing and literature.
But not everything civilization brings to the world helps humanity. Read about more innovations -- good and bad -- on the next page. People built huge temples, and a priestly ruling class took its place high up in the power structure. After all, these were the people who knew the intentions of gods like Enlil wind and Utu sun. Organized religion also produced moral codes of conduct, which gave birth to formal laws. Legal concepts like restitution, retaliation and punishment for false accusations were streamlined.
Freedom from the necessity of foraging for food also allowed early agricultural societies to engage in other pursuits with less tangible rewards. Chief among these is science.
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