![]() The farmers in Sumer created levees to hold back the floods from their fields and cut canals to channel river water to the fields. The wheel, plow, and writing (a system which we call cuneiform) are examples of their achievements. The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to Mesopotamia, they created a great civilization. Beginning around 5,500 years ago, the Sumerians built cities along the rivers in Lower Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and made many advances in technology. This is why Mesopotamia is part of the fertile crescent, an area of land in the Middle East that is rich in fertile soil and crescent-shaped. The flooding deposited silt, which is fertile, rich, soil, on the banks of the rivers every year. However, snow, melting in the mountains at the source of these two rivers, created an annual flooding. There is very little rainfall in Lower Mesopotamia. ![]() Mesopotamia at first glance does not look like an ideal place for a civilization to flourish. It also has a government, values, and beliefs. People in a civilization belong to different social classes and do different types of jobs. A civilization is a group of people who have a high level of culture and order. ![]() The first known civilization started there. Here large cities lined the rivers and many advances took place. Mesopotamia is located in Southwest Asia. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle, or beginning, of civilization. The first settlers to this region did not speak Greek, it was only thousands of years later that the Greek-speaking Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, conquered this land and carried with him his culture. The word Mesopotamia comes from Greek words meaning "land between the rivers." The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates.
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