Unit 3 - Lesson 4: How did Intensification Lead to the Development of

Writing, Laws, and Centralized Governments in Early Civilizations?

Big Ideas of the Lesson
Intensification -- improvements in technology and farming practices that allowed
people to produce and store more food -- enabled more people to live in one area.
As more people began to live in one area with more resources to distribute, new
problems developed which required new solutions.
Important solutions that developed to help people manage these new problems
included the written language, systems of law, and centralized political power (government).
Writing systems and laws developed over time in different ways in different societies.
This is because different civilizations had different people, different environments and
geography, and thus different needs and cultures.
Both writing and legal systems helped to firmly establish social hierarchies and
divide power up in different ways.
Lesson Abstract:
During this era of early agrarian civilizations (4000 1000 BCE), processes like urbanization and
intensification required humans to maintain order among growing populations. Some societies
created written laws, while others passed along laws through oral tradition. In this lesson, students
look at evidence of both writing systems and laws in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and also to explore
the parallel development of writing, law, and government. Students examine a timeline and maps
to establish the temporal and spatial frames of these historical developments. They then analyze
primary documents and engage in an interactive exploration of hieroglyphics to consider the
importance of writing, law, and government in these early civilizations. Finally, they compare and
contrast Egypt and Mesopotamia with respect to their laws.
Content Expectations1:
7th Grade: H 1.2.1; H1.2.2; H1.2.3; H1.4.1; H1.4.2; H1.4.3; W2.1.1
Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies: RH.6-8.1, 2, 4, 6, and
7; WHST.6-8.4, 9, and 10; SL.6-8.4
Key Concepts
civilization
evidence
intensification
power and authority
social hierarchy
technology
writing

1 The language of the content expectations can be found in the Reference Section at the end of the lesson.