A difficult environment
Mesopotamia is also called?
The Fertile Crescent.
In Neolithic times people in some areas of the world began what?
They began farming
Farmers who moved to Sumer faced many challenges, one of the biggest problems was?
The uncontrolled water supply.
As Sumerian cities grew they fought over what
The right to use more water.
The Sumerians progressed from living in small farming villages to building large what?
To build large walled city-states.
The fertile crescent runs in which two rivers?
Between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River.
The nearby wooded hills provided timber for building what?
They used the wooded hills for building shelters
During the spring, rain and melted snow from the mountains flowed into what rivers?
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
People in cities located upriver built new canals, or blocked what?
Blocked other cities' canals.
To control the water supply, Sumerians built what?
They built a complex irrigation system.
What were the barriers used for?
To keep out enemies.
Driven by the need to grow food, people moved out of the foothills and onto the plains. This region became known as?
Sumer
Sumerian farmers began creating what to control the water supply?
Irrigation systems for their fields.
what is a canal?
A canal is a human-made waterway that allows boats and ships to pass from one body of water to another.
The Independent city-states often did what with one another.
They often fought.
What are reeds?
They are weeds that grow near rivers.
Below the foothills and to the south, what rivers ran through flat plains.
The Euphrates and Tigris rivers ran through flat plains.
what are levees?
A levee is a wall that blocks water from going where we don't want it to go.
Around the cities, the Sumerians began constructing strong walls out of what?
Mud bricks that were baked in the sun until hard.
To defend themselves the Sumerians built what?
The Sumerians built walls and dug moats around their cities.
Mesopotamians faced four major problems what was 1
During most of the year, the land was very hard and dry. And the plains lacked what?
They lacked trees and stones for making shelters and tools.
Over time, the Sumerians learned other ways to control the supply of water like what?
They dug canals to shape the paths the water flowed.
The Sumerians also dug what
Moats outside city walls to help prevent enemies from entering their cities
The Sumerians had transformed Sumerian farming villages into what?
The Sumerians had transformed Sumerian farming villages into walled city-states.