Environmental Impact On Mesopotamian Religion And Politics.

Analyze the effects that the Agricultural Revolution had on people and their environments.

Agricultural Revolution effects on people

• The agriculture revolution showed how people were finally able to settle down in a stable environment that was usually near rivers since they didn’t have to move all of them time. They could then finally build communities.
• The working situation changed during this revolution by allowing women to help with farming instead of staying at their home. Women were held to a new responsibility in the work force. For example, women had to help maintain the new plants introduced.
• With so much flooding and droughts going on during this revolution, families would move closer to an environment that had rich soil so that the families could farm with no hassle.

Agricultural Revolution effects on the environment

• Farming became more popular during this revolution, thus making more people take up space to grow their crops, thus lessening the natural resources available for later years.
• During this revolution, new tools were brought up to the people such as making food-producing easier by using “polished or ground stone heads to work the soil,” (9). These new tools shaped the environment differently by changing the way it looks and how people take care of it.
• Pollution in the air started to become a problem because civilians started to clear fields by using fire thus polluting the air with toxins and destroying rich soils and animals environments.
• Early communities transformed certain untamed grasses into “higher-yielding domesticated grains,” (9-10). By making these grasses into different grains, these grains were able to have the same amount of nutrients as normal grains but these domesticated grains used less space thus saving the environment by not polluting it as much.
• Rice became a crop-favored in China due to the environment because it was warm and wet. With this environment, rice was produced greatly and therefore China was able to trade rice to Europe for Europeans to try. Rice therefore became traded greatly.

Compare the adaptation of the three river valley peoples (Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley) to their varied environments.

Mesopotamia

• With so much rainfall each year, most of the civilians in Mesopotamia relied on irrigation. With relying on irrigation so much many families bonded together and would vote on leaders to help, “organize large numbers of the people to work together,” to help maintain the irrigation system.
• Floods were a major problem faced in Mesopotamia especially during the wrong time. The civilians learned how to successfully react to this disaster by creating canal to avoid flooding. The canals would help control or stop the flooding.
• Mesopotamians would plant barley because barley was able to survive the hot and dry climate when floods were not occurring.
• Many of the civilians created dams to raise the water level of the water so that civilians could get what they needed.
• Also, many civilians would use the un-buffet land to serve as the barriers during the floods because the floods were ruining their crops and housing.

Egypt

• Egypt had the longest river (Nile River) so many civilians relied on the river to support their lush crops. Thus, the civilians made the river the main travel used and communication used.
• With the climate being hot, agriculture was easy. For example, grain agriculture was important and many people relied on it because the Nile would flood exactly at the right time to make the soil rich for the grains.
• With the lack of the rainfall south of delta, most farmers relied on the river water which overflowed each September. Every now and then the rivers would flood and would leave rich soil filled with minerals to make farming easier.
• Knowing the levels of floods changed the people built “Nilometers-stone staircases”. (25) These staircases helped keep the natural resources from being diminished. For example if the staircases were not made, the crop papyrus would not be able to help make sails, ropes, or specific papers because the papyrus plant would be ruined.
• The Sahara desert produced a wet and warm climate therefore making it easier to support plants and animals. Many people decided to move there because of the climate because it was easier for them.
• When the rivers would flood, lots of mud was in the rivers which made it easier to build materials to use for housing. For example mud bricks and different stones were made because of all the mud leftover from the floods.

Indus Valley

• Due to the flooding, the farmers had to adapt to planting harvesting the crops. For instance, farmers had to plant and harvest only 2 crops when it was not flooding.
• When it was not flooding, the civilians used the main river to help supply them of resources such as agriculture and water to help bathe.
• Due to the floods, many of the civilians used big and strong mudbricks to make their homes. Also, in order to make these mudbricks, many skilled artists were hired to help plan out how to build houses that would not get ruined by the floods.
• The society ended up producing more urban cities instead of farms because farming agriculture was too hard with all the floods. Even though agriculture decreased, many civilians got fish and water from the different flood plains.

Analyze how environment affected the religious and political development of Mesopotamia.

Environment affect political devlopments

• In the Mesopotamia society, the temple leaders and kings controlled the large agricultural because agricultural was so important in this society.
• Political classes were based on where you lived and how much land you owned:

• First Class- contained a lot of land and a lot of money and the people lived in the city
• Second Class- dependent farmers, owned little land, rural work force
• Third Class- slaves, owned no land, free-labor money

• Many rich people increased which made agriculture grow because more free-labor slaves were working because more money meant more slaves in Mesopotamia,.
• With the lack of resources for the peasants such as mudbricks and reed, their houses would disintegrate slowly and that made slaves angrier and they decided to run off or not work as hard.
• When agricultural was dominate, women would lose social standings because the male domination did not depend on them as much when agricultural was big.

Environment affected religion

• The people feared the gods because they believed that the gods created the natural disasters and so the people did not want to upset them by doing anything that could possibly disturb them.
• With all the floods, most of the temples were made out of the mudbricks because the mudbricks could withhold floods or any other natural disasters.
• The semitic people would became dominat and so did the somerians Gods.

Analyze how environment affected the religious and political development of Egypt.

Environment affected political developments

• The king was in charged was seen as controlling the prosperity of the people. For example the prosperity of the people includes how well they do in the agriculture field. If the people are selling crops and trading them then the government flourishes.
• With the lack of resources to make temples for the king, many people had to come and help over the years to help the build the different temples.
• The bureaucrats in the society were in charged in keeping track of how much land everyone had and what land was used for farming.
• When the monarchy grew, they were given more land by the peasants. Therefore the reward for having a better government was receiving more land which made natural resources increase.
• More people lived in the rural areas and engaged in farming which a lot of wealth came from farming.
• Egypt really focused on trading and the civilian’s relied on the Nile River to help trading more successful.
• No class structure was established but there was a unspoken class structure which was determined by how much land one has and how much land one has.
• Women were treated more fairly even though agriculture was dominated in this society.

Environment affected the religion in Egypt

• The dominant religion was founded in the “landscape” of the Nile river valley. The religion was based solely on where the Nile River is.
• The civilians in Egypt used the sky and the sun to help formulate their beliefs. In Egypt, most civilians could see the sky very clearly and therefore they spent a lot of time looking at the sky and formulating their religious beliefs.
• Most of the wealth from all the agriculture success was given to religion to help make the gods happy.
• Egyptians believed in the afterlife of a human and so they used the natural resources from their land to build the caskets used for the people.

Analyze how environment affected the religious and political development of the Indus Valley.

Environment affect by religion

• Due to the decline in the political atmosphere in the Indus Valley, religion was not very prominent.
• Also with all the floods and natural disasters, it made it hard to have a religion because places of worship were being destroyed every other week or month by the weather.
• The Indus Valley would most likely have the same beliefs as the Mesopotamians because the Mesopotamians also dealt with natural disasters and they found out how to keep their religion.

Environment affected the political development

• The political system failed very quickly because the natural disasters made it hard to rebuild their city over again without failing. Not enough of the community could help each other out because everyone was struggling.
• Most of civilians built a lot of urban cities because of all the flooding. Each of the urban cities had its each zone and different functions.
• Due to all the natural disasters, each different city had its own function. For example, Harappa was on a farmland and it was probably used as a “gateway”. (33)
• Many people lived in smaller settlements because they were easier to rebuild whenever a natural disaster happened.

Analyze how new technologies promoted the development of the three river valley civilizations.

Mesopotamia new technologies

• They created a new writing system that helped created the social classes, helped increase people to read and write, and it was used for legal proof.
• Wheeled carts were created to help animals drag bigger luggage so that the people could get more stuff at of each trip to the fields or the river.
• Metals and mudbricks were shaped and carved to help support the home stand. Mudbricks served as the foundation of homes and metal was used for utensils to help civilians eat.
• Civilians created the Siege machine to help protect their homes and the machine was used mostly for protection and to fight back when needed.

Egypt new technologies

• Hieroglyphic was the writing system developed created to help with. This system was usually on monomers.
• Acurssive script was also used for everyday needs such as writing down how much money is a crop.
• They created a new paper that was made from the papyrus crop which grew only in Egypt and it soon became a great demand during trading. This helped boost the trading side of the city.
• They developed mathematics to measure fields and to show how much agricultural produced needed to go back to the different states.
• They created the most accurate calendar to keep track of the holidays the festivals.

Indus Valley new technologies

• With the skill set used in agriculture, many of those people used potter’s wheel to lay foundations of large buildings. (33)
• They created a communication and writing system that helped communicate with their traders. This helped create a stronger bond between the different societies.
• The civilians created drain pipes to help control the water from the floods and these drain pipes helped move waste elsewhere.