Early Humans
This evolutionary adaptation helped hominins improve balance, use tools, and gather food.
What is bipedalism?
This empire united Mesopotamian city-states into the world’s first empire.
What is the Akkadian Empire?
This process describes rural communities growing into cities.
What is urbanization?
These religious structures symbolized the connection between heaven and earth.
What are ziggurats?
This ancient Indus Valley city remains mysterious because its written language has never been deciphered.
This fossil discovery showed that bipedalism evolved before large brain size.
Who is Lucy?
This empire was the first to control a vast, multi-ethnic territory.
What is the Assyrian Empire?
Cities in the Indus Valley had a grid layout, with streets crisscrossing, standardized building designs, and more, indicating that this region featured the world's first ____________ cities.
What is planned cities?
This early text reflects Mesopotamian views on morality, heroism, and gods.
What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
This ancient structure in southeastern Turkey challenges our understanding of early societies, as it was built by hunter-gatherers, not farmers.
What is Göbekli Tepe?
During this period, humans transitioned from foraging to farming and domesticated animals.
What is the Neolithic Era?
This development (a world first!) helped Sargon’s Akkadian Empire rapidly conquer city-states.
What is the establishment of a permanent army?
This city’s most important legacy is its early writing system, cuneiform.
What is Uruk?
This tool used in cuneiform writing made signing documents easier (used like a stamp that could be used over and over again).
What is a cylinder seal?
Scholars are unsure why humans transitioned to this lifestyle, as it was harder than hunting and gathering.
What is farming?
This term refers to early humans and their closest extinct ancestors.
What is hominin?
This civilization connected with Mesopotamia to form one of the earliest regional trade webs.
What is the Indus Valley?
This site, famous for its religious structures, challenges assumptions about early sedentary life.
What is Göbekli Tepe?
This group of humans is credited with first developing agriculture as they best knew the seed and what would or wouldn't grow around their homes.
Who are women?
This early Mesopotamian concept included divine laws or decrees given to humans by a god and believed to maintain order and civilization.
What is the Meh?
This major extinction event cleared the way for mammals, including early human ancestors.
What is the asteroid impact at the Yucatán Peninsula?
This Mesopotamian epic is considered the oldest known story in the world.
What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Harappan culture emphasized a level of cleanliness not seen before in the ancient world, thanks in large part to these advancements.
What are water storage systems and public pools?
This type of work emerged as societies became more complex.
What is specialized labor?
his ancient Babylonian artifact is one of the earliest examples of written law, inscribed with 282 laws covering justice, trade, and family life.
What is the Code of Hammurabi?