Mesopotamia: A difficult enviorment
What is one major problem in the hills?
Food Shortages
What was a big disadvantage when the population grew in Mesopotamia?
Food Shortages
how did the farmers control the water supply?
by building levees, canals, reservoirs, and dams.
what did the Sumerians use from the environment to build their walls?
they used bricks and local mud.
why did they build walls in their neighborhoods?
To protect themselves from getting attacked
What is a nickname for Mesopotamia?
Fertile Cresent
Why did people move out of the foothills?
They needed food
How did they control the water supply?
By building reservoirs,levees, canals, dams
why did farmers clean the canals regularly?
if they don't the clogged canal can ruin the whole system.
What is a big disadvantage in the Sumerian system of canals that flowed through many different cities?
city-states upriver can possibly block the river flow for other city-states downriver.
Mesopotamia is between what rivers?
Tigris and Euphrates
why did the foothills have such a high population?
Because people settled there and as more people came the population grew more.
what helped farmers to be successful in Sumer?
by controlling the water supply
why did farmers clean the canals?
they cleaned them for the common good.
why did the people build walls around the city-states?
they built them to stay safe from the attacking neighbors.
Why was Mesopotamia a hard place to live in?
Because there was always too little or too much rain
what was the water supply in Sumer?
it was very unreliable because farmers always had too much or too little water.
what is an example of sumer's soil during the year?
sunbaked and dry as hard as stone.
Why did Sumerians have to build a larger community?
they needed to maintain the irrigation systen
why did Sumerians fight?
they fought to keep water away from other cities.
what were the small independent countries called in Mesopotamia?
City-States
where were the first people to begin farming in Mesopotamia live?
Zagros mountains.
How did the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flood?
they flooded from melted snow going down from the mountains into the rivers.
what would happen if you refused to help clean out the canals?
the system would clog up and ruin everyone in the neighborhood's crops.
how did conflict over water supply impact the Sumerians life?
they dug moats from getting into the neighborhoods.