6/25/2023 0 Comments Sumerian civilizationWithout irrigation and canals, the fierce storms that struck during the spring and caused the river to flood would have made planting impossible. The Ubaid people developed irrigation and marsh-drainage techniques to allow them to practice agriculture along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. This distinctive pottery appears to have eclipsed that of the Samarrans and Halafians in popularity. Use of the slow wheel and unlimited access to clay resulted in the production of large amounts of greenish colored pottery decorated with brown or black geometric designs and loop handles. The Ubaid people (named after Tell-al Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia near what would become the city of Ur and now is Muqaiyir) are generally credited with the settlement of southern Mesopotamia and the creation of more complex towns. In northern Mesopotamia, Halafian culture (5500-4500 b.c.e.) established settlements, which took the form of a large number of tiny communities, and the Halafians engaged in extensive trade of their distinctive pottery. By 5000 b.c.e., a few small settlements extended into southern Mesopotamia. Ceramic wares and grain were traded for copper (used in jewelry) and for semiprecious stones such as obsidian and turquoise. Houses, built with mud and clay bricks, appear to have contained about ten rooms. In central Mesopotamia, the Samarra culture (5500-5000 b.c.e.) established agricultural settlements. It would take another thousand years for the Sumerians to build on the work of previous cultures and turn a scattering of settlements into a series of thriving city-states. By 6000 b.c.e., the agricultural revolution brought settled Neolithic societies to the hilly north and to the mountains east of Mesopotamia, but not until a thousand years later were agricultural techniques sufficiently understood for a few adventuresome peoples to migrate into these inhospitable river plains. This area was subject to torrential rainstorms, periodic flooding, sweltering heat, and blazing sunlight. This civilization arose between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a mess of mud, clay, and reedy swamps roughly 200 miles (320 kilometers) long and 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide (at its widest point). “Mesopotamia,” based on the Greek for “land between the rivers,” is used to describe what many historians define as the world’s earliest civilization. The Sumerians, building on previous societies, founded complex political, economic, social, and cultural superstructures and therefore came to be regarded as one of the world’s earliest civilizations.
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