Why is mesopotamia known as the cradle of civilization

But there's more to civilization than building cities, and until more evidence comes to light, Sumer, Assyria, Babylon and the other cities of Mesopotamia will stand as the groups who gave birth to civilized life. It's difficult to say whether civilization would have developed without the work of the Mesopotamians and prior groups. Do we as humans have a natural urge to live together in large groups?

It's interesting to note that people seemed to have experienced the same impulse to band together in cities around the same time in different places. But what do we make of the fact that for the first several million years of human existence, people lived together only in small wandering bands? Is civilization a natural process of human evolution? If so, what's our next step? Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots.

Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. History vs. Why is Mesopotamia called the cradle of civilization? The First Civilization. The Foundation of Civilization " ". The Mesopotamians placed a lot of importance on religion.

This carving is actually a nail used in one of the great temples in Mesopotamia. Is Mesopotamia the Real Cradle of Civilization? Civilization also spawned war, as is depicted in this 7th c. The First Civilization If Mesopotamia wasn't the beginnings of civilization, then what was? Sources Diamond, Jared. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account.

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This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Jugraphia With Rashid Faridi. Email Address:. Click Here to Subscribe. Tourism Geography. Rashid's Blog: An Educational Portal. Skip to content. Why Indus Valley Civilization Declined? Invention of writing The invention of the wheel is also credited to the Mesopotamians and, in CE Domestication of animals, agriculture, common tools, sophisticated weaponry and warfare, the chariot, wine, beer, demarcation of time into hours, minutes, and seconds, religious rites, the sail sailboats , and irrigation.

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Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Mesopotamia is thought to be one of the places where early civilization developed. Sumer also became a hotbed of innovation , as the Sumerians took inventions that other ancient peoples developed, from pottery to textile weaving, and figured out how to do them on an industrial scale.

Meanwhile, Upper Mesopotamia developed its own urban areas such as Tepe Gawra , where researchers have discovered brick temples with intricate recesses and pilasters, and found other evidence of a sophisticated culture.

According to Reculeau, climate shifts may have played a role in the development of Mesopotamian civilization. Roughly around 4, B. Because they had to work harder and in a more organized fashion to survive, Mesopotamians gradually developed a more elaborate system of government.

That all led to the development of a social structure in which the elites either coerced workers or obtained their labor by providing meals and wages. In Upper Mesopotamia, by contrast, people coped with a drier climate by going in the opposite direction socially. Mesopotamia eventually saw the rise of empires such as Akkad and Babylonia , whose capital city of Babylon became one of the largest and most advanced in the ancient world.