1) What is Civilization?

(Tips – Meaning of Civilisation, ‘Prehistoric Paradise’, The mystery of

Gobekli Tepe, Characteristics of early civilisations - stable water supply and food supply,
social structure and developed practices, System of government, Religious System, Advances
in Technology, Highly developed system of writing, Specialized jobs and division of labour,
Highly developed way of life, shows evidence of a developed culture in its arts and social
culture, Are we civilised today?)

Ans: Civilization is a group of organized communities with advance culture and

technology shaped by human innovation and natural landscapes and resources.

The following are the Characteristics of any civilization:

a) Stable water and food supply: A stable water and food supply is needed
to feed the population for farming and other jobs.
b) Social Structure: Social structure helps in identifying how much power
one has. For example, people in Sumer were divided into social classes
like Kings, priests, warriors, and government workers form the upper
class. The middle class had farmers, fishers, and artisans. Enslaved
people made up the lowest class.
c) System of Government: Government helps in organizing the laws,
military, security, and finance of a nation. For Example, As the city-states
formed in Sumer, they had their own governments and their own army
to protect itself from neighbouring attacks.
d) Religious System: Religion helps in giving people hope and someone to
lookup to. It helps people behave with the supernatural force and makes
the people of one religion to feel united. For example, Sumerians
thought Gods as rich landowners who created humans. Priests, ordinary
people, and even rulers said prayers and made offerings to the Gods.
e) Advances in Technology: Technology helps life become easier, makes a
better military for a nation and can increase its finance. For example, the
people in Sumer learned to use canals to irrigate crops. They created
new tools and materials.
f) Highly developed system of writing: Writing helps keep track of things,
make treaties and helps communicate with other people. For Example,
Sumerians created a way of writing called Cuneiform, which was used
for recording business deals and other aspects of life.
g) Specialized jobs and Division of Labour: Specializations and division of
labour help make a society good at multiple jobs. For example, Sumerian
workers build houses, created pottery, weaved clothes. When people
specialize, the quality of their work improves because they develop a
skill. As the cities become crowded, people must learn to live together.
They also have to cooperate. As a result, some people have to organize
the society. For example, In early Sumerian cities, priests ran society and
acted as judges.
h) Developed way of life: A developed way of life distinguishes a
civilizations place and recognizes one.
i) Developed Culture in Arts and Social Culture: Arts and social culture
helps season trade with other nations and makes a place unique.
2) Why did Civilization begin in the Fertile Cresent?

Ans: The term Fertile Cresent refers to an area in the Middle East where the earliest
known civilizations of the world began. The area got its name because the soil is fertile, or
rich, and the region is shaped like a cresent. The Fertile Cresent covers an area from the
Persian Gulf through the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys and along the Mediterranean
Sea. The Eastern part of the Fertile Cresent is referred to as Mesopotamia. The western part
of the Fertile Cresent is referred to as the Mediterranean section.

The Fertile Cresent was a good place for hunter-gathers to end their life long
venture and to settle with the purpose of building a successful community. This area was
rich with animals and plants which could be domesticated. For example, animals like goats
and sheep and plants like wheat and barley were domesticated. The Tigris and Euphrates
rivers provided a permanent food and water source which was needed for a successful
civilization. Due to the rivers, the people could domesticate surplus animals and plants than
needed. Thus, these spare animals and plants could be traded. This was an advantage as the
Mesopotamian area was a potential source of trade and commerce. With the increase of
trade, the increase in the population presented a need for new laws, keeping records, and
inventing new ways of living their lives. Along with these needs, came an urge to create a
form of written language and spoken language, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and
more advancements to improve the society.

The developments and inventions that arrived from the change of lifestyle (from
hunters and fishers to farmers) has helped to create the world’s first true civilizations. These
civilizations have averted world history tremendously in not only socially but also financially
and in religion as well. The Fertile Crescent was not only the source of the first civilizations
but also encouraged great civilizations like the Assyrians, Egyptians, and the Babylonians.

3) How did geographic challenges lead to the rise of city-states in Mesopotamia?

Ans: During the years of 3500BC and 2500BC, the geography of a land often impacted a
civilizations development in great measures. Depending on the resources available or the
detriments present due to certain topographical characteristics like rivers or deserts, a
civilization could flourish or collapse.

Mesopotamia is a Greek word which means “land between the rivers”. The earlier
known civilization arose in what is now southern Iraq, on a flat plain bounded by the Tigris
river and the Euphrates River. Mesopotamia lay in the eastern most part of the Fertile
Crescent, a curving strip of fertile land that extends from the Mediterranean Sea to Persian
Gulf.

This part of the land was very fertile and was good for growing crops because of the
rich silt., because of the silt brought by the seasonal flooding, and caused agricultural
successes.

Between 3500B.C, the civilization of Southern Mesopotamia underwent a sudden

growth and change, revolving around the city-states of Ur and Uruk. This change demanded
 more advancements in agriculture and technology like the plough, potter’s wheel, and the
introduction of bronze. People also clustered into fewer but larger locations. This change
was probably driven by climate change and thus rendered the older methods of agriculture
less productive.

The people of this area began the first agricultural revolution. Instead of hunting and
gathering food, they began to domesticate animals and plants, beginning with goats and
sheep. Hunter-gatherers, after roaming around finally found a place with enough food to last
and decided to stop moving. In Turkey, they found out a type of wheat which had a small
genetic mutation; which made sure that the seeds would not scatter like other types of wild
wheat. They lived in houses built from reeds or mud-bricks, grouped in villages where they
tended their crops. They built granaries to store their harvest, and they began developing a
token system to record trade, accounts, and charges.

Some of the problems Mesopotamia faced in agriculture were the flooding

(happened every spring once in a year) which resulted in the invention of the levee, the dryness
of the land which resulted in the invention of irrigation, and the frequency of attacks by the
neighbouring communities and city-states which resulted in the more common usage of the
walls made out of sun-baked mud bricks in cities.

4) How did natural resources and agricultural technology affect the evolution of Sumerian
Civilisation?

Ans: The Sumerians were the first people to build a civilization in Mesopotamia. They
created a great civilization. The Sumerians built cities along the rivers in Lower
Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and made many advances in technology. The wheel,
plow, and writing (their system was called cuneiform) are examples of their achievements.
The farmers in Sumer created Leeves to prevent the floods from sub-merging their fields and
cut canals to channel river waters to the fields. The use of leeves and canals is called
irrigation, another Sumerian invention.

Farmers in Mesopotamia got water from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Sometimes, though, it rained too much. This caused the rivers to flood. Floods could destroy
crops and structures, but they also left the land covered with silt. Silt is a nutritious soil
which is good for farming.

By using irrigation, farmers could grow large amounts of food. The people of
Mesopotamia had extra food, or a surplus. As a result, not everyone need to farm. Some
people could become artisans. An artisan is a person who makes goods, such as cloth, tools,
or weapons. Soon people began to live together in places that helped them trade goods.
Before long, small villages grew into cities. By 3000B.C., many cities had started and grown in
Sumer. Sumer is the region in southern Mesopotamia. They build many cities and they had
deserts around their cities. Deserts were hard to travel across. As a result, each city stood
alone.

As cities grew, they had control of the land around them. In this way, they formed
city-states. Each city has its own government. Each city-state was surrounded by a large wall.
Sumerian city-states fought with each other for control over the river, a valuable resource.
 An army was needed to protect itself from the neighbours. However, during peace times,
they traded with each other.

Sumerian people had a common language and created a style of writing called
Cuneiform, which assisted in recording the business dealings and important events. They
also worshipped many Gods, which is called polytheism. Also, they had a division of social
classes. Sumerians invented many useful inventions like wheel, sailboats, and wooden
plough. They found out how to make bronze out of copper and tin. They studied
Mathematics and Astronomy.

Each invention has contributed to our success and advancements in technology

today. Their inventions like the wheel is still used in most of the vehicles today. Writing is
taught in institutions today. It is used in business, finance, education, politics, and almost
every other job you can of. Thus, Sumerian civilization has helped lead us to our success
today.

5) Why was a writing system so crucial to the development of Mesopotamia?

Ans: People in Mesopotamia developed one of the earliest writing systems in the world.
As trade expanded, merchants needed records of exchanges. Also, they wanted to label the
goods. Agriculture required expertise and detailed record keeping. This led to the invention
of writing so that information could be recorded and pass on their ideas to others.

The writing system was crucial because:

1) It was a way to account for the amount of goods distributed and received
2) To plan what to farm and record how much
3) To calculate taxes
4) To organize labour and resources in order to sustain a large, agriculture based
civilization
5) Ancient receipt – The seal was a record of the transaction: People signed items with
personal seals made out of stone, metal, or wood. These were common among the
business and the working class.

Development

This writing system began with pictures or signs drawn on a clay tablets knows as
Pictographs which means picture writing. The Scribes, professional record keepers, drew the
sign on the soft clay tablets using a pointed tool, probably made out of a reed called Stylus.

For Example, Barley was drawn like this

(Optional) Farmers brought their barley to the temple stores. A record was kept of how
much barley was received, how much barley was given to the temple workers. The barley
sign usually had a number next to it to show how much barley was given to the temple.
(Optional)

Over the period, a wedge-shaped symbols were scratched into soft clay tablets. This wedge-
shaped writing is called Cuneiform. For example, the barley sign was written using several
wedges. These signs have changed over the centuries like The ancient tables have signs
drawn in boxes, the signs were written in rows(arranged in the order in which they were
read), all the signs appeared to be lying on their side.

Over time, the system developed to incorporate signs that represented sounds. For
example, The Sumerian word for Barley was ‘she’. The barley sign was used to represent the
sound ‘she’ like the Sumerian word for fig-cake is called ‘she-er-ku’.

Cuneiform writing was used to record information such as temple activities, business and
trade, to write stories, myths, and personal letters. The script was used to write different
languages like Sumerian. The script was also used by other people as they needed to record
information but did not have their own language.
6) What are some of the threats faced by modern civilisations today? (Tips – Main reasons for
the rise of ancient civilisations, Key features of Civilisation, How does each feature
contribute to the civilisation’s success?, Key reasons for the fall of civilisation, Modern
civilisations can be in crisis)
Ans:
Throughout our world history, many civilizations arose and collapsed. Many were
successful and many were ineffective because of the poor leadership. From the rise and fall
of different civilizations, different technologies and inventions were developed and passed
on to future generations, as well as different political organizations and cultures. The
environment and the way the civilization spread out and expanded has a great deal in the
rise/fall of their civilization. Depending on the environment, different parts of the world
made agriculture easier or harder. Agricultural developments have led to specializations that
has helped civilizations succeed and dominate over other nations.

A large number of historians have offered many different criteria for a successful
civilization. But the important factors remain the same:
- A large, centralized population
- A surplus of food
- A centralized government
- Religious unity
- A complex division of labour
- Money collected through taxes

Any harm to that large, centralized population can potentially lead to a civilization’s
collapse. It might be struck by a warfare, disease, or a change in climate. These reasons are
the most common causes of a nation’s fall. For Example, the earliest known civilization of
Sumer, in Mesopotamia, collapsed under the strain of constant invasions in the second
millennium B.C.

Environmental changes like deforestation, soil erosion, degradation, and exhaustion

of food or pollution of water sources, combined with natural disasters such as prolonged
drought or repeated floods, and severe earthquakes can also severely affect a civilization
success. For example, a 300 year drought had diminished the Akkadian Empire between
2200B.C and 2500B.C.
This is often combined with an increasing ineffectiveness from governmental or
social structures which results in a weakening of the social system. The people or citizens
then decide to abandon or flee the cultural community to elsewhere.

Civilizations have developed over time and across space evolving into modern day
societies. Over time, civilizations have risen and fallen. Usually, civilizations are responsible
for their own decline. However, the process of dissolution is also assisted by attacks or
revolution. An example is the fall of Rome. It was decaying through over expansion, climatic
change, environmental degradation, and ineffective leadership. In 1476 C.E., it was finally
attacked by the Visigoths and Vandals. Today modern society is suffering from “temporal
exhaustion”. The civilization “is out of breath” and imagining the future is not a good idea
any more. We must be in the present due to this exhaustion.