Four major early civilizations developed around 3500 BCE along major river valleys: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Northwest India, and Northern China. These civilizations were located near rivers which provided essential resources like water for irrigation and fertile soil for agriculture, allowing populations to grow and more complex societies to form. Some key developments in these early river valley civilizations included systems of writing, centralized governments, advances in mathematics, astronomy and calendar systems, as well as religious and social structures like patriarchy. Many of the innovations and traditions of these early civilizations continued to influence later societies and still impact the modern world today.

1. Introducing the earliest
“civilizations”:
Larger more complex societies develop
around 3500 BCE (give or take a day...)
4 major centers: ME, Egypt, NW India, N.
China (around rivers - know them!)
Small portion of inhabited world BUT most
densely populated for the next 2500 yrs.

2. Mesopotamia
For early Civilizations “Rivers Deliver”…
Why are rivers essential for them?

4. Mesopotamia:
“Land between the rivers”

5. Mesopotamia:
“Land between the rivers”

6. Mesopotamia:
“Land between the rivers”
Dikes and canals help
tame floods (earliest
irrigation began around
6000 BCE)

7. Mesopotamia:
“Land between the rivers”
Dikes and canals help
tame floods (earliest
irrigation began around
6000 BCE)
Agricultural technologies
lead to food surplus

8. Mesopotamia:
“Land between the rivers”
Dikes and canals help
tame floods (earliest
irrigation began around
6000 BCE)
Agricultural technologies
lead to food surplus
By 3000 BCE,
population of Sumer is
near 100,000! (inc.
migrants from other
areas)

9. Technological Development in
Mesopotamia
Bronze (copper with tin), c. 4000 BCE
 Military, agricultural applications
Iron, c. 1000 BCE
 Cheaper than bronze
Wheel, boats, c. 3500 BCE
Shipbuilding increases trade networks
Cities built with government and public
works and develop into city-states (control
inside AND outside city walls)
4

10. The Sumerian Civilization - the
beginning of the whole “Mess”
Develop cuneiform as a system of writing (Impact?)
 Record laws, treaties, social & political customs…
 Via trade, written language spreads to other Civs.
Develop 12 month calendar and use geometry to
develop arches and columns.
Polytheistic religion using Ziggurats to worship gods.
Fell to invaders, but the culture did not die (why?)

11. Sumerian City-States
Cities appear 4000 BCE
Dominate region from 3200-2350 BCE
 Ur (home of Abraham, see Genesis 11:28),
Nineveh (see Jonah)
Ziggurat home of the god
Divine mandate to Kings
Regulation of Trade
Defense from nomadic marauders
6

12. cuneiform

13. Development of Writing
Sumerian writing systems form 3500 BCE
Pictographs
Cuneiform: “wedge-shaped”
 Preservation of documents on clay
 Declines from 400 BCE with spread of Greek
alphabetic script
8

14. Uses for Writing
Trade
Astronomy
Mathematics
 Agricultural applications
Calculation of time
 12-month year
 24-hour day, 60-minute hour
9

15. Ziggurats

16. The Ziggurat of Ur
11

17. Political Decline of Sumer
Semitic peoples from northern Mesopotamia
overshadow Sumer
 Sargon of Akkad (2370-2315 BCE)
Destroyed Sumerian city-states one by one, created empire
based in Akkad (strong personal presence, controlled and
taxed trade)
Empire unable to maintain chronic rebellions
Hammurabi of Babylon (1792-1750 BCE)
 Improved taxation, legislation
 Used local governors to maintain control of city-states
Babylonian Empire later destroyed by Hittites from
Anatolia, c. 1595 BCE (IRON WEAPONS!)
12

19. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.

20. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.
The Akkadians develop the first known code of
laws using Sumerian Cuneiform.

21. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.
The Akkadians develop the first known code of
laws using Sumerian Cuneiform.

22. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.
The Akkadians develop the first known code of
laws using Sumerian Cuneiform.
The Babylonian King Hammurabi developed the
Code of Hammurabi (impact?)

23. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.
The Akkadians develop the first known code of
laws using Sumerian Cuneiform.
The Babylonian King Hammurabi developed the
Code of Hammurabi (impact?)

24. Akkadians, then Babylonians, then
Hittites, then… you get the picture.
The Akkadians develop the first known code of
laws using Sumerian Cuneiform.
The Babylonian King Hammurabi developed the
Code of Hammurabi (impact?)
Babylonian bronze weapons fall to the Hittites
iron weapons that fall to the Assyrian’s stronger
iron that fall to the Chaldean King
Nebuchadnezzar who rebuilds Babylon and then
eventually falls to the Persians.

25. Code of Hammurabi
What language would the code of Hammurabi be in? How does the
code show social status and role of men, women and children? (p. 43)

26. Patriarchal Society
 Men as landowners, relationship to status
 Patriarchy: “rule of the father”
 Right to sell wives, children
 Double standard of sexual morality
 Women drowned for adultery
 Relaxed sexual mores for men
 Yet some possibilities of social mobility for women
 Court advisers, temple priestesses, economic activity
 Introduction of the veil at least c. 1500 BCE
15
Copyright © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Permission Required for Reproduction or Display.

27. Mesopotamian Empires, 1800-600
BCE
16

28. The broader influence...
Wealth attracted attention (migrants and
enemies)
People migrated out (took ideas with
them)
Trade networks established (connected
regions and societies - assimilation and
adaptation!)
Military ventures...
17

30. Other Mesopotamian societies and
their contributions...

31. Other Mesopotamian societies and
their contributions...

32. Other Mesopotamian societies and
their contributions...
The Lydians (coin money)

33. Other Mesopotamian societies and
their contributions...
The Lydians (coin money)
Phoenicians (trade and communication
networks AND alphabet)

34. Other Mesopotamian societies and
their contributions...
The Lydians (coin money)
Phoenicians (trade and communication
networks AND alphabet)
Hebrews (Moses and Judaism)
 Hebrews shared polytheistic beliefs of other
Mesopotamian civilizations
 Moses introduces monotheism, belief in single god
 Denies existence of competing parallel deities
 Personal god: reward and punishment for
conformity with revealed law
 The Torah (“doctrine or teaching”)

35. Israel and Phoenicia , 1500-600 BCE
19
Copyright © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Permission Required for Reproduction or Display.

36. Indo-European Migrations
Common roots of many languages of
Europe, southwest Asia, India
Implies influence of a single Indo-
European people
 Probable original homeland: modern-day
Ukraine and Russia, 4500-2500 BCE
Domestication of horses, use of Sumerian
weaponry allowed them to spread widely
20

37. Implications of Indo-European
Migration
Hittites migrate to central Anatolia, c. 1900
BCE, later dominate Babylonia
Influence on trade
 Horses, chariots with spoked wheels
 Iron
 Migrations to western China, Greece, Italy
also significant
 See map (migration in WH)
21

38. Indo-European migrations 3000-1000
BCE
22

39. Other pre-classical river valley
civilizations
Egyptian Civilization
 trade w/Mes.
 unified for most of history
Irrigation led to org/gov’t
Pharaoh (sun god)
pyramids
 from 2700 B.C.E.
 polytheistic, mummification
adv. math (24 hrs.)/365 day
calendar, medicine, astronomy
Patriarchal (women some
privileges)
Kush invades
Egypt, Kush and Axum
23

40. Indian civilizations
Indus River by 2500 BCE (little known)
Harappa, Mohenjo Daro
 running water, streets in grids
 trade contacts w/ Mes. but own alphabet/art
Indo-Europeans
 blend of Aryans and Indus valley peoples (see
map)
 along w/natural calamities destroy early cities
 combined their rel./pol ideas w/ earlier ones
24

41. Chinese civilizations
Huanghe (Yellow) River in relative isolation (although
some trade)
P'an Ku (mythic ancestor of Chinese)
Developments
 carefully regulated irrigation
 ride horses, iron, coal,
 ideographic symbols (language)
Shang dynasty (from 1766-1122 B.C.E.)
 bronze metallurgy (helped with warfare)
 “Mandate of Heaven” led to the Zhou dynasty
 Social structure (stratified and patriarchal)
25

42. What about the Americas?
Olmec, Mayan and later Incan civilization
 no knowledge of wheel
 polytheistic
 terraced pyramids (also temples)
 pictographic writing
 astronomy (predicted eclipses)
 lack of pack animals kept them isolated
 not in river valleys (mts/ocean/smaller rivers)
 smaller city-states ruled by kings/warlike
26

43. The Heritage and legacies of the early
River Valley Civilizations
*Be able to compare and contrast
these early civs in terms of their
ways of life.
*Describe the legacies of the river
valley civs. carried forward to the
classical civilizations and even
today?
27