History 2173 Lecture : Mesopotamia
31 Jan 2013
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Document Summary
Mesopotamia is given precedence by historians because three vital things first happened which are the development of cities, the development of large scale irrigation projects, and the development of writing. These things spread to other areas from here and thus it is looked at as number one. Made up of peasant communities who worked in agriculture in northern mesopotamia (south was unoccupied) Population expansion in the north perhaps pushed people down into the area between the tigris and euphrates. Called uruk in southern mesopotamia and was associated with minor starts of urban development. The trigger for the cities were the placement near the rivers because they needed the water and this led to cooperation in agriculture and other pursuits (small populations can"t offer this) Sumerians were incomers like many other people in the area (sumerians probably from iran) Southern part of mesopotamia is called sumer (cities in the area are ur, umma, lagash, etc)
