Summer 2021

HIS 102: Introduction to World Civilization

Department of History and Philosophy, North South University

LECTURE 4:
ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE AND
FIRST RIVER-VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS
8000-1500 B.C.E: MESOPOTAMIA

DR. KAZI MARUFUL ISLAM

kazi.islam07@northsouth.edu
1 July 2021
TALKING POINTS
§ Introduction to the
beginning of human
civilization
§ Timeline
§ Mesopotamia Civilizaion
 TIMELINE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION
CULTURAL EVOLUTION: 1. Hunter gatherer nomads

32,400 Earliest cave paintings of Cro-Magnons (Chauvet caves at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc,

France)
30,000 Latest record of Homo erectus (from Asia)
28,000 Earliest representational art: sculptured 'Venus of Willendorf' (Austria)
15,000 Mongoloids colonize North America from Asia over Bering land bridge, or from
Europe by boat
14,000 Domestication of dogs (China)
12,000 Extinction of woolly mammoths (America and Europe), due to climate and man
11,000 Domestication of sheep (Iraq)
10,000 Domestication of goats (Iran), and pigs (Thailand)
10,000 Continental ice-sheets withdraw from Europe and North America
 TIMELINE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION
2. Agricultural farming and settlements

9,500 Cultivation of wheat and barley (Mesopotamia = modern Iraq)

9,500 First town: Jericho, Palestine, walled city of population 2500

8,000 First hand pottery, and spinning and weaving (Mesopotamia)

7,550 Flooding of Black Sea from Mediterranean (the biblical flood of Noah's Ark)

7,500 Cultivation of millet and rice (China)

7,000 world population of humans passes 5 million

 TIMELINE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION
7,000 Domestication of cattle (Iran)

6,350 Domestication of horses (Ukraine)

5,500 First use of wheel (Mesopotamia), → transport and pottery

5,400 First use of number system: decimals (Egypt)

5,100 Beginning of Old Kingdom (Egypt), urban Sumer civilisation (Mesopotamia)

5,000 First written words: hieroglyphics (Egypt), cuneiform (Mesopotamia)

4,800 First writing on papyrus (paper)

4,700 First monuments: pyramids (Egypt)

4,000 Invention of ice-cream (China) || start of bronze age (Europe), first metallic
money
BEFORE CIVILIZATION
THE STONE (LITHIC) AGE

qA. Paleo-lithic - Old Stone Age

qB. Agricultural Revolution
qC. Neo-Lithic - New Stone
FEATURES OF PALEOLITHIC AGE
§ Communities – Hunter (men) & Gatherer (women)
§ Tools – bone, skin, wood, & stone
§ Food – vegetables, nuts & fruits - very little meat
§ Family – women raised children, cooking, sewing
§ Shelter – natural shelters or mobile tents
§ Activities – art, tool making, religious practices,
social gatherings
§ Religion – belief in afterlife, complicated
FEATURES OF AGRICULTURE REVOLUTION
§ Domestication – plants & animals
ØAgriculture – cultivation- needed fertile soil & rivers
ØAnimals – transportation and ag. Purposes
ØAmericas – limited due to few suitable species – llama
S.A.
ØAfrica & Asia – cattle
ØM.E. – camel & donkey
Result – Population increase & stable
 PRIMARY AGRICULTURE
ØMediterranean area - Wheat and Barley Sub-Saharan
Africa - Sorghum, Millet, Teff
ØEquatorial West Africa – Yams
ØEastern and Southern Asia - Rice
ØAmerica - Maize, Potatoes, Quinoa, Mani

Lets watch on Agriculture Revolution

Øhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rboewQNMpdU
FEATURES OF NEOLITHIC AGE
§ 1. Culture
§ Religion – ancestral worship & nature spirits (earth, wind, fire);
sacred places; deities – mother earth, sky god (male)
§ Astronomy – megaliths – burial chambers, calendar circles,
astronomical observations
§ Language – societies began to spread and language began to
diversify
§ 2. Towns
§ Villages – most people lived in small rural v.
§ Cities – few lived in large cities – problem: needed large food
supply to support a large population
TWO ANCIENT EVIDENCES
Jericho

vLocated on West Bank of Jordan River

(Israel)
vWalled town with mud-brick
structures
vDates back to 8000 B.C.E.
 TWO EVIDENCES
§ Catal Hϋyϋk
§ Located in central Anatolia
(Turkey) Dates to 7000-5000
B.C.E.
§ Center for trade in obsidian,
produced pottery, baskets,
woolen cloth, beads, leather,
and wood products
WHAT DO EVIDENCES SAY?
§ Jericho and Catal Hϋ yϋ k tell us that there were the social
organizations necessary to support non-food producing
specialists such as:
ØPriests, Craftspeople
ØHad labor to build defensive walls, megalithic
structures, and tombs.
ØUnknown if labor to build was free or slaves
RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATION:
MESOPOTAMIA
§ Agriculture and Environment
Ø Plain around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Ø Difficult environment for agriculture: Little rain, floods, change of the river
course
1. Warm climate & good soil
2. Used cattle-pulled plows and seed planter
3. Built irrigation canals to bring water to fields
4. Food & animals - no resources
5. Early people - Sumerians
MESOPOTAMIA: AGRICULTURE AND
NATURAL RESOURCES
§ Crops Animals
§ Date Palms Cattle
§ Vegetables Donkeys
§ Reeds
Camels
§ Fish
Horses
§ Land for grazing goats and sheep
§ No significant wood, stone, or metal resources

§
 MESOPOTAMIA: CITY AND SOCIETY
§ 1. City-State – urban center w/ ag. territory
a. Sometimes traded, sometimes fought over resources
§ 2. Temples were more important than Palaces
§ 3. Large City-States – Sumer, Babylon, Akkad
§ 1. Social Classes (kings controlled most of the wealth)
§ a. Free Landowning class
b. Dependent farmers & artisans
c. Slaves – POW, minor part of economy
§ 2. Power shift – women men (agriculture)
§ 3. Women – no political role
Could: Own property, Control their dowry, Engage in trade
§ 1. Rise of urban merchant class greater emphasis on male privilege
and decline in women’s status.
MESOPOTAMIA
§ D. Gods, Priests & Temples
§ Each city-state had its own gods
§ Gods were humanlike – anthropomorphic
§ Priests were highly honored
§ Temples were the 1st monumental
MESOPOTAMIA
Science
1. Technology=specialized knowledge that is used to
transform the natural environment
2. Forms of technology - Irrigation systems, buildings
•– Transportation, Bronze metallurgy, Brickmaking
•– Engineering, pottery & potter’s wheel

Military advances included:

§ Paid, full-time soldiers, Horses, Horse-drawn chariot, Bow
and Arrow, Siege Machinery
 LETS WATCH SHORT VIDEO ON
MESOPOTAMIA
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=XVF5KZA0HTQ
THANKS