Vocab
_____ are fine particles of rock
silt
Early humans were what?
Hunters and gatherers
What is agriculture?
Farming and raising livestock (animals)
What challenge forced the people of Mesopotamia to move to the river-valley?
Food shortages
What is the Sumerian writing system called?
Cuneiform
______ is the business of growing crops and raising animals
Agriculture
People during the Paleolithic Age lived in what?
Caves or Tents
Why were early settlements created in the Fertile Crescent?
The land was fertile and good for growing crops.
What rivers did Sumer depend on for its water supply?
Tigris and Euphrates
How many laws did Hammurabi's Code have?
282
_____taming/training animals and plants to be useful to humans
Domestication
What is it called when someone moves from place to place with NO permanent home?
Nomad
What is the most important development of this time period?
Agriculture
Farmers in Sumer faced times of flooding and too little water, how did they solve this problem of an uncontrolled water supply?
Irrigation systems (canals, levees, dams, etc.)
What is a ziggurat?
A temple (where they worshipped, church, etc)
What is the geographic area located between the tigris and euphrates rivers?
Mesopotamia
Roughly how many years ago did the Paleolithic age begin?
2 million years ago.
People during the Neolithic age lived in what? (be specific)
Permanent shelters made from sun-baked clay bricks.
Why did city-states have to build walls and moats around their cities?
To protect themselves from attacks from neighboring villages
What were the three levels of a Sumerian social structure?
Upperclass, Middle Class, Lower Class
_________ are cities that were like small independent countries with their own laws and government.
City-States
What is another name for the Paleolithic Age?
Old Stone Age
What happened after people discovered agriculture and could create a stable food supply?
Make permanent shelters
Why were Sumerian communities called city-states?
Had their own ruler and farmland.
What is the name of the red ore that early city-states had to trade to get?
Hematite