Mesopotamia PowerPoint notes

The Origins and “Ages” of Human Beings


  • 200,000 years ago a human species emerged in equatorial (central) Africa
  • 14,000 years ago, a “worldwide” human race existed
  • Earliest prehistoric age is the Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)
  • Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) was marked by advanced tool making & beginnings of agriculture
  • Initially, humans were parts of migratory groups which hunted, fished, and gathered plants for food


The Agricultural Revolution

  • Also known as the Neolithic Revolution, this was a shift from itinerant hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements centered on agriculture (beginning in southwestern Asia)
  • Populations rose due to increased ability to produce a surplus of food; thus feeding and caring for young children
  • Hierarchies appeared in village life; the status of women was lowered as women were confined more to domestic duties
  • Invention of wheel and plow made it possible to produce enough food for storage
  • Villagers were polytheists, worshipping multiple nature, human, and animal gods

Mesopotamia: 
Home of the Earliest Cities

  • the district known as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
  • Population increased dramatically due to new irrigation techniques
  • Cities and towns were founded, some with as many as 40,000 inhabitants
  • better food storage allowed for diversity in professions: priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, farmers
  • Kings emerged, as did family dynasties and the concept of the “city-state”
  • Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as “cuneiform”
  • a pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged, with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world
  • the world’s first (surviving) epic was the Sumerian “Epic of Gilgamesh,” which told of a great flood
  • Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on moon cycles
  • the Ziggurat was a Sumerian temple built on top of a “mountain” of earth

Civilization in Mesopotamia

  • Wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas, especially to the south of Sumer in Arabia
  • Sumer was conquered by the Akkadians c. 2350 B.C. - their gods took the place of previous gods and all were forced to worship them
  • King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as “Hammurabi’s Code” - laws that included “an eye for an eye” and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes

The Expansion of Mesopotamian Civilization

  • Indo-Europeans were people from the grasslands of the Russian steppe who introduced the horse to the Near East
  • the warlike Indo-European tribe known as the Hittites settled in Asia Minor
  • the Hittites had a lucrative trade in metals and conquered nearly all of their neighbors, even threatening Egypt



















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