The earliest civilizations formed along river valleys like the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia. These civilizations developed organized governments, religions, social hierarchies, technologies, and legal systems to manage resources and address environmental challenges like flooding. Notable early civilizations included the Sumerians, who established city-states around 3000 BC and developed innovations like irrigation systems, the wheel, writing, and mathematics. Their culture diffused and empires like Sargon of Akkad's and Hammurabi's Babylonian Empire consolidated power over time. Hammurabi created one of the first legal codes to standardize laws.

1. Early River Valley
Civilizations
City-States in Mesopotamia

2. Preview Main Ideas
▪ Interaction with the Environment: The earliest civilizations formed
on fertile river plains.These lands faced challenges, such as seasonal
flooding and a limited growing area.
▪ Power and Authority: Projects such as irrigations systems required
leadership and laws-the beginnings of organized government. In
some societies, priests controlled the first governments. In others,
military leaders and kings ruled.
▪ Science andTechnology: Developed bronze tools, the wheel, the
sail, the plow, writing, and mathematics.These innovations spread
through trade, wars, and the movement of people.

3. Timeline
• 3000 B.C. City states form in Sumer, Mesopotamia.
• 2600 B.C. Egypt’s Old Kingdom develops.
• 1792 B.C. Hammurabi develops code of laws for Babylonian Empire.
• 1750 B.C. IndusValley civilization declines.
• 1027 B.C. Zhou Dynasty forms in China.

4. Map of Mesopotamia and Egypt
The Fertile
Crescent was the
land that included
theTigris and
Euphrates Rivers.

5. Fertile land surrounded by deserts provided some of the best farming in Southwest
Asia.This land is calledThe Fertile Crescent.
Included lands that faced the Mediterranean Sea and a plain that became known as
Mesopotamia.The word in Greek means “land between two rivers.”
• Annual floodwaters deposited silt. Farmers planted grain in the rich silt.They
irrigated the crops with river water.
• Settlement in Mesopotamia began around 4500 B.C. Around 3300 B.C.The
Sumerians arrived on the scene.
• Sumerians created city-states.They were not one unified country. Each city-state
had its own government and its own rulers.These city states included Ur, Kish,
Lagash, Uruk, and Umma.

6. Problems and Solutions to Environmental Challenges
Problems:
*Flooding
*Drought
*Lack of natural defenses
*Limited resources. Building materials were scarce.
Solutions:
*Built irrigations ditches to water distant fields.
*Built walls with mud bricks for defense.
*Traded surpluses of grain, cloth, and crafted goods for wood, metal, stones.

7. SUMERIAN CULTURE
Priests and rulers share control.
Farmers believed that the success of their crops were dependent upon the blessings of the
gods.They believed that humans were servants to the gods.
There were multiple gods.
The ziggurat was a religious temple and served liked a city hall.
Military leaders eventually became the rulers.They passed on their rule to their sons
forming a dynasty.
After 2500 B.C. many Sumerian city-states came under rule of dynasties.

8. SUMERIAN CULTURE
By 2500 B.C. new cities arose throughout the Fertile Crescent, in what is now Syria,
northern Iraq, andTurkey.
Sumerians exchanged goods and ideas with neighboring cultures.The process of
spreading goods and ideas from one culture to another is called Cultural Diffusion.
Religion played a huge part of Sumerian life. Sumerians worked hard to please the
gods.They expected nothing from the gods after they died.They believed that
their souls went to a land of no return, a dismal, gloomy place between the earth’s
crust and the ancient sea.
Social classes were created. Kings, landholders, and some priests made up the
highest level in Sumerian culture.

9. SUMERIAN CULTURE
Slaves were at the lowest level. Some slaves were foreigners who were captured in
war.
Some Sumerians were sold into slavery to pay a debt. Debt slaves could hope to
eventually buy their freedom.
Sumerian women had more rights than women in later civilizations. Sumerian
women were able to hold property; work as merchants, farmers, and artisans; they
could join the priesthood; and some could learn to read and write.

10. Sumerian Technology
Arithmetic and Geometry: Sumerians needs arithmetic and geometry
to erect structures and plan irrigation systems.They developed a
numbering system in base 60, from which stem the modern units of
measuring time and the 360 degrees of a circle.
Architectural Innovations: Arches, columns, ramps, and the pyramid
shaped the design of the ziggurat and permanently influenced
Mesopotamian civilization.
Cuneiform: Summerians created a system of writing. One of the first
known maps was made on a clay tablet in about 2000 B.C.

11. The First Empire Builders
City-states were constantly at war with one another (3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.)
City-states were weakened.They were unable to withstand attacks from peoples from
surrounding deserts ad hills.
Sumerians did not recover from the attacks but their culture lived on.
Sargon of Akkad in about 2350 B.C. defeated the city-states of Sumer. Sargon created
the world’s first EMPIRE. He helped spread the Sumerian culture beyond theTigris-
EuphratesValley. The dynasty lasted about 200 years.
Babylonian Empire existed about 2000 B.C. Nomadic warriors known as Amorites
invaded Mesopotamia.They overwhelmed the Sumerians and established their capital
at Babylon, on the banks of the Euphrates River.

12. The First Empire Builders
The Babylonian
Empire reached its
peak during the
reign of
Hammurabi, from
1792 to 1750 B.C.
Hammurabi’s
lasting legacy is the
code of laws he
enacted.

13. The Code of Hammurabi
Hammurabi collected existing laws, judgments, and rules and unified them into the
Code of Hammurabi.
The code was engraved in stone, and copies were placed all over the empire.
The code listed 282 specific laws dealing with issues such as crime, business dealings,
and family relations.
There were different punishments for the rich and poor and for men and women. It
frequently applied the principle of retaliation of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The code reinforced the principle that government had a responsibility for what
occurred in society. Later societies adopted many ideas of the code.