Our World History By: Ryan Farley, David Buckley, and Taylor Byers

What were the factors that led to civilized society? The human mind has always been enhancing and inventing things to make the world be what they want it to be. Beginning in the primitive lifestyle, humans found ways to advance in technology from simply finding what the world gave them, and finding a way to use it. Irrigation came to be because humans needed a better way to acquire water, because they had water it made farming easier. They were able to settle down and farm the land, beginning small civilized societies.

Where did early civilizations develop and how did they diffuse? Most early civilizations developed near major rivers, most of them were in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This was due to farming, and a need for irrigation. When more nomads started settling and farming the land, the civilizations grew. This resulted in economic, governmental, and technological advancement in many ancient civilizations.

Describe the major characteristics of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River. For each civilization include its social, political, and economic structure, its technological advances, and the factors that gave rise to cities.

Mestopia The civilization of Mesopotamia was inhabited by farmers that had established villages. The people of Mesopotamia developed pictographs that evolved into symbols representing words, syllables, and eventually phonetic sounds. This way of Mesopotamian writing was called Cuneiform. The people of Mesopotamia used Cuneiform as a way of writing down documents such as royal edicts, business letters, and early codes of law enacted by the king. The Mesopotamian government was very subtle. Mesopotamia was essentially a group of nomads and farmers living in North Africa and the Middle East. They established small villages and townships there. Eventually, the climate changed and most villagers went south towards present-day Nigeria or west towards Egypt.

Egypt The civilization of Egypt also established its own form of writing called hieroglyphics. The early Egyptians kept track of the seasons through astronomy and the Nile River, and also developed the most accurate calendar with 365 days a year. They developed systems of mathematics in order to construct the pyramids. They also developed a large-scale government bureaucracy, ruled by a pharaoh. They made laws, and traded with other civilizations. The Pharaoh was a god to the people. Around 5,000 B.C. villages sprang up around the Nile River. Eventually, the pyramids ornamentally buried the dead and started an architectural breakthrough. They started developing larger cities. Eventually, those cities grew to larger civilizations, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Egypt still stands today.

Indus Valley The Indus Valley Civilizations created bathrooms and toilets with a sewage system. The civilization had ways of writing, but so far no one ahs been able to decipher them. It is believed that the civilization covered and area bigger than Mesopotamia and Egypt put together.

Yellow Empire The Yellow Empire (Chinese) was built by the Yellow River (acquiring its name). The Indus Valley is located around present-day Pakistan and India. Historians believe, but have no proof, that the empire allowed only thee people to be kings: the Three Sage Kings. The kirngs governed the Yellow Empire. The people of the Empire devised a 12 month calendar, and also developed their own kind of pictograph symbols; the roots of the sarme writing system used by China today. where the civilization there is becoming very modern. The road system is rectangular, as are the homes around it. Even the first sewer systems were invented here. The only reason why the Indus civilization no longer exists is probably because of earthquakes and floods that occurred about 1700 B.C. Eventually, the remaining culture became the roots of Indian culture.

The END!!! This presentation was made Possible by David Buckley Taylor Byers and Ryan Farley