Their settlements of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, for instance, housed approximately 40,000 to 50,000 individuals and featured baked-brick buildings. Although the Sumerians invented cities, the people of the Indus Valley perfected them. Starting around 3300 B.C., these settlements grew particularly bustling. to 1300 B.C.)Īround 7000 B.C., agriculturalists began building small villages throughout the Indus River Valley in present-day India and Pakistan. These innovations secured Mesopotamia’s modern title: the “Cradle of Civilization.” The Sumerians also pioneered mathematics, astronomy and astrology, invented irrigation, started the first schools, codified the first codes of law and fashioned our current conceptions of time by dividing the day into hours, minutes and seconds. This system allowed them to track the movement of grain throughout their territory, share stories and myths, and spread advice on agriculture and cooking, among other purposes. The ancient Sumerians are also credited with creating the written word: As many as 5,000 years ago, they scratched clay tablets with a writing system called cuneiform. Sumerian cities such as Eridu, Uruk and Ur contained tall temple and palace complexes. By about 4500 B.C., these communities (who we currently call the Sumerians), could cultivate crops in such excess that they could forge the world’s first cities without feeling peckish. Around 10000 B.C., Mesopotamia’s “Fertile Crescent” allowed ancient populations to settle and support themselves with farming. to 1900 B.C.)Īncient Sumer, an area in Mesopotamia above the shared floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is famous for fostering the first civilizations in human history. (The exact timelines for these civilizations are approximate and subject to academic debate.) Sumerian Civilization (4500 B.C. Here are seven ancient societies that have gained a reputation for their ingenuity and innovation. They could construct towering temples and palaces and throw themselves into the burgeoning endeavors of art, philosophy and politics. Ultimately, the security provided by abundant food allowed portions of the human population to concentrate on converting small, agrarian settlements into vibrant cities. Though they had previously traversed the planet to forage for food, people made the decision to devote themselves to agriculture and spent their days planting seeds, picking produce and amassing the world’s first food surpluses. Around 12,000 years ago, humans hunkered down.
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