Fertile cresant

From prehistory to civilization 3000-1200 B.C

Before civilization the prehistoric era

• The origins and ages of human beings

• 200,00 years ago and human species emerged in south western Africa
• 14,00 years ago a worldwide human race existed
• Earliest prehistoric age is the Paleolithic age
• Neolithic age was marked by advanced tool making and the beginnings of agriculture
• Initially, humans were parts of migratory groups which hunted fished and gathered plants for food

• The agriculture revolution

• Also known as the Neolithic revolution this was a shift from itinerant hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements centered on agriculture (BEGINNING IN SOUTHWESTERN ASIA)
• Populations rose due to increased ability to care for young children
• Hierarchies appeared in village life the status of women was lowered as women we confined more domestic duties
• Invention of the wheel and plow made it possible to produce enough food for storage
• Villagers we polytheists worshipped multiple nature, human and animal gods

• Mesopotamia then… and now.

• The district known as Sumer occupied the land between

         the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

• Population increased dramatically due to the new irrigation techniques
• Cities and towns were founded, some with as many 40,000 inhabitants
• Better food storage allowed diversity in professions priest, tradesmen ,artisans Politian's farmers
• Kings emerged as did family dynasties and the concept of the city-state
• Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing known as cuneiform
• A pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world
• The world's first surviving epic was the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh which told of a great flood
• Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on moon cycles
• The ziggurat was a Sumerian temple built on tip of a "mountain" of earth

a mess o' Mesopotamia

Civilization of Mesopotamia

• Wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas especially to the south of Sumer in Arabia
• King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as Hammurabi's code - laws that include ""an eye for eye" and regulations of marriages, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of

The expansion

The expansions of Mesopotamian civilization

• Indo - Europeans were people from the grasslands of the Russians steppe who introduced the horse to the Near East
• The warlike Indo-European tribe known as the Hittites settled in Asia Minor
• The Hittites had a lucrative trade in metals and conquered  nearly all of their neighbors even threating Egypt

 Hammurabi Codes ( laws I find important)   

1. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.

2. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.  

3. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five shekels in money to its owner.

4. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

5. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father, both shall be burned

6. If a "sister of a god" open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.