Key Terms
Development
10,000–8,000 BCE Locations: Mexico, Peru, China, India/Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt Common factor: farming allowed large popula
Small groups
Decisions made collectively; order enforced at family level Large civilizations: priests and kings held authority; subje
Definition
Independent political entity consisting of a city and surrounding territory it controls
Significance
Earliest evidence of agriculture; site of the first urban areas
Mesopotamia
Greek for "land between the rivers"; term likely originated with Herodotus, 5th century BCE Location: Between Tigris and
Turkey to Persian Gulf Flooding
Frequent but unpredictable; led to cooperative irrigation projects Sumer: Southern Mesopotamia; site of world's first gr
Flexibility
Adapted by Akkadians, Babylonians, and others to their own languages Deciphered: 19th century CE by historians
Schmandt-Besserat theory
Clay tokens represented goods (livestock, grain, oils); stored in clay balls called "bullae" marked with token pictures;
Glassner theory
Writing was a purposeful attempt to render Sumerian language in script; equates it to how priests interpreted omens; wri
Polytheism
Reverence of many gods Each city had a patron deity:
Ziggurat
Immense stepped tower with a flat top; built of mud-brick; served as temple in Sumerian cities
Afterlife
All people spent eternity in a shadowy underworld called "the land of no return"; described as gloomy, frightening; dead
Astronomy
Believed gods were visible in sky as stars, moon, sun, planets; developed sophisticated understanding of celestial movem
Lugal
Sumerian term for ruler/king
Sargon of Akkad
Conquered all of Sumer and Mesopotamia around 2300 BCE; created first-known empire Akkadians: Group settled in central M