🌎 CULTURAL HEARTHS
A place where important ideas, practices, and technologies develop.
Cultural hearth
The type of settlement where people live in one location instead of moving from place to place.
Permanent settlement
The region in present-day Mexico where maize became an important crop.
Oaxaca
The river system that supported the settlement of Faiyum.
Nile
Land that is especially good for growing crops.
Fertile land
Cultural hearths were important because they allowed these three things to develop.
New ideas, practices, and technology
The village known as one of the world's oldest permanent settlements.
Çatalhöyük
The important crop grown in Oaxaca that could produce a large amount of food in a small space.
Maize
The ancient settlement in Egypt supported by the Nile River.
Faiyum
Rivers were important to early villages because they provided this resource for people and crops.
Water
These areas often developed near sources of water and fertile land.
Cultural hearths
Early villages were able to support larger populations when they could grow enough of this.
Food
The wild grass from which maize was developed.
Teosinte
The culture that developed in China and is known for its trade networks.
Longshan
The ability to grow crops helped people do this instead of constantly moving from place to place.
Settle permanently
The ancient village in present-day Turkey that was one of the world's oldest permanent settlements.
Çatalhöyük
The ability to produce more food than people immediately needed.
Food surplus
Maize was especially valuable because it could produce a lot of this in a small area.
Food
The earlier Chinese culture that the Longshan culture differed from.
Yangshao
The development of farming villages eventually helped lead to these larger and more complex societies.
Civilizations
A major reason early villages could grow and develop was access to this resource needed for drinking, farming, and raising animals.
Water
The major development that allowed many early villages to become permanent communities.
Agriculture
The valley in Mexico associated with the development of agriculture in Oaxaca.
Tehuacán Valley
The ancient cultural hearth associated with the Huang He and Chang Jiang river systems.
China
The common geographic feature shared by many ancient cultural hearths that helped support farming.
Fertile land near water