Mesopotamia River Settlement

Chapter 2 covers the development of human settlement patterns along five river basins. The authors focus on how humans used the environment to sustain larger scale settlements than previously experienced. Please respond to the following discussion question: What were some of the similarities and differences among these river settlements? How do we account for those similarities and differences? What, if anything, stood out to you in this chapter as particularly interesting or surprising?

The major river zones covered were the Nile, Mesopotamia, Indus, and Yellow and Yangzi. these zones were singled out due to the special influences they would have on the course of history. The Nile is a singular river that had a regular and predictable flood season enabling a signal system to develop. This culture had a …show more content…
Though it maintained close trading ties with Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is the area around the tigris and Euphrates rivers. Unlike the Nile these rivers were faster flowing and had more unpredictable flooding. The farmers had to deal vary differently with their rivers then the Egyptians did. They built large irrigation networks and canals between the tigris and Euphrates allowing the usual floods the flow into the other instead of damaging the cities and towns. Unlike in Egypt the mesopotamians were not centralized and had different cultures amongst them. Mesopotamia had fertile hinterlands the allowed for sizable populations the survive and they would occasionally migrate to the cities. They too saw importance in trade and participated heavily in receiving and exporting goods. The indus group is mysterious and not well understood . They like the previous two had developed writing but it has not been deciphered. They did not participate in the the large building process the produced the massive pyramids or the ziggurats, but stilled showed signs of have social hierarchies. They made large efforts to control trade building