Early River Valley Civilizations

Today in class we read pages 26-34 again and took more notes. I learned that Mesopotamia was a place inside the Fertile Crescent. It was given this name because that means "land between two rivers." Farmers here planted grain, wheat, and barley. People first started settling in Mesopotamia before 4500 BC. In 3300 BC, Sumerians began arriving. They had many challenges like unpredicatable flooding, periods of little or no rain, no natural resources, and scarce building materials. They made solutions to these problems like building irrigation ditches for water, building city walls for defense, and they also traded grain for materials. Sumerians were the first people to form a civilization. By 3000 BC, they even developed different cities with their own governments called city states.