Chapter 4 Notes

Difficulties of living in Mesopotamia Food Shortages in the Foothills Uncontrolled Water Supply in the River Valley Difficulties in Building/Maintaining an Irrigation System Attacks by Neighboring Communities The Growth of City-States What are we going to be learning?

Small villages ----  City-States ▫ City-states: A small city that functions like a small, independent country. Has it’s own ruler and farmland Located in Mesopotamia ▫ “Land between two rivers” First appeared in Southern part of land ▫ Sumer Date back to 3500 B.C.E Rise of Sumerian City States: Introduction

Northern part ▫ Hilly, received rain Southern part ▫ Low plains, flat land ▫ Little rain ▫ Building material hard to find ▫ Few natural barriers Difficulties Living in Mesopotamia Four Key Problems 1)Food shortages in the hills 2)An uncontrolled water supply on the plains 3)Difficulties in building and maintaining irrigation systems 4)Attacks by neighboring communities

People began farming in foothills of Zargos Mountains No problems at first = population rose 5000 B.C.E: Land shortages ▫ Not enough land to grow food for increase in population Food Shortages in the Hills Below foothills, Tigris and Euphrates ran through plains ▫ Large area of land ▫ Mostly hard and dry In the spring, rivers flooded ▫ Food shortages= people moved to plains Region became known as Sumer ▫ Sumerians: ancient people who lived in the geographic region of Sumer

Farmers who moved to Sumer could not control water supply ▫ Spring: Tigris and Euphrates would flood ( unpredictable ) ▫ Rest of year: soil dry and hard Growing food was difficult Uncontrolled Water Supply in River Valley (4.4) Farmers began to create irrigation systems ▫ Irrigation system: a means of supplying land with water ▫ Levee: wall of earth built to prevent a river from flooding its banks ( picture on next slide) Also dug canals, built dams, stored water in reservoirs

Irrigation system: a means of supplying land with water

Farmers had to work together to maintain system Working together, larger communities began to grow ▫ Villages grew into towns ▫ Some towns had populations in the thousands! Difficulties in Building/Maintaining Irrigation Maintaining irrigation system was difficult ▫ Passed through many different villages Canals had to be cleaned regularly

Sumerians began to build walls of mud bricks around cities People lived inside city ▫ Farmers lived outside Walled cities were called city-states: early city that lived like an independent country with own laws and government Attacks by Neighboring Communities The larger cities grew= more competition for water ▫ Cities would block off canals No natural barriers for protection in plains

Food shortages ▫ Moved from foothills to river valley Water supply ▫ Irrigation systems ▫ Forced cities to work together  Often led to fighting as well Small Farming Villages --  Large City States Around 3500 B.C.E, villages began to transform into walled city- states Sumerians faced problems and solved them