Quaestio: What do the earliest civilizations have in common?

Nunc Agenda: What is a “civilization” anyway? As a group, define “civilization” and decide what

features make up a civilization.

Example- “You’re not a civilization unless you have…”

Early Villages

• Governed by chiefs or elders

• Traditional economy based on customs

• Examples: Catal Huyuk and Jericho– Two early Neolithic Villages– Both developed near rivers

Growth of Civilization

• Small villages eventually become…

• Cities (larger and more organized), then…

• City-States (political entity including a city and the surrounding land),

then…

• Empires (group of states controlled by one ruler)

What’s a Civilization?

• Civilization = complex, highly organized social order

Civilization Check List• Organized Government

– Rulers claim divine right to rule– Tax collection

• Complex Religion– Most were polytheistic (many gods)

• Job Specialization– Farmers, soldiers, masons (builders),

merchants (traders), artisans (people who make things)

• Hierarchy (ranking) of Social Classes– Nobles/Priests on top, slaves on the

bottom

Civilization Check List

• Arts & Architecture (building design)

• Public Works – Irrigation systems, roads, walls, temples

• Writing– First used for record keeping, preserving

rituals, or displaying a ruler’s achievements– Earliest form = pictographs– Later, symbols represented sounds– Scribes (people trained in writing) became

very important to have around

Why River Valleys?

• Floods deposit nutrient-rich silt into soil making it fertile for farming

• Water supply

• Fishing

• Transportation

BIG FOUR!• Tigris & Euphrates Rivers

– Location: Modern Iraq/Syria (Mesopotamia)– Flooding: Irregular

• Nile River– Location: Modern Egypt/Sudan– Flooding: Regular

• Indus River– Location: Modern Pakistan– Flooding: Regular

• Yellow River– Location: Modern China– Flooding: Irregular

Mesopotamia

• Name means “Between Rivers”

• Sumer– Began 3300 BCE– First Civilization!– Location = Southern Mesopotamia

Is Sumer a Civilization?

In groups, using your textbooks (p 30-34) and your civilization check list, identify

and write down an example of each feature on the list from

Ancient Sumer

Sumer• 12 city-states (not united)• Built Ziggurats (stepped

temples) to worship gods• Believed afterlife was a

scary underworld • Invented writing system

called cuneiform (looked like wedge marks)

Homework: Go to MRCASEYHISTORY.COM, watch the video “Mesopotamia: Crash Course World History,”

and answer the following questions:

1. One of the oldest known works of literature was from Sumer. What was it called?

2. What was needed to make the Tigris and Euphrates useful for irrigation?

3. What might be one reason that people in Mesopotamia believed the gods were angry and mean?4. What was the original use for Cuneiform writing?5. Why did Mesopotamians have to trade?6. Who was Hammurabi?7. Why might the poorest people in Babylonian society

welcome nomadic invaders?8. Why are empires hard to unify?9. What is a meritocracy?10. According to Assyrian beliefs, what would happen if

they ever stopped conquering other lands?