Early Civilization

The first people were nomads but after the ice age they began settle down instead of moving because of the weather. The first farming civilization was in the Middle East near the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent was a very fertile area of land that was good for pastoralism and agriculture. The people that lived there were the first farmers. They grew crops such as barley and wheat around them because it was a reliable and abundant food supply. Eventually because the food supply was so abundant and they were able to store it so easily for a long period of time, this lead to a food surplus. Another food supply that they came across was animals. They started domesticating animals such as the goats and sheep for not only a food supply but also for their milk and fur. Because there was a larger supply of food, the population started to expand. With the growth of the population, came specialists because not as many people had to farm the land. These specialists learned new skills and invented new technology, such as forging steel. These people would use fire to heat metal to make weapons and other tools, for example, the plow. This technological advance used domesticated horses and ox to pull the plow, which had sharp blades, and was used for breaking up soil for on farming. Another technological advance was plaster. This was made by using fire that was 1000 degrees to heat stones and was used for making houses. Eventually the people of the Fertile Crescent began to move away because the climate was too dry & the ecology was to fragile to support continuous farming. So these villages left and spread east and west of the Fertile Crescent. This was helpful

to them because the places they moved to had the same climate as the Fertile Crescent, so the same crops and animals that were grown and raised there, could be grown in the new places that had the same latitude. Soon enough the people had enough food to feed the pharaohs, engineers, scripts, the artist, inventors, soldiers, and the workers. This helped them accumulated wealth and created social structure from the wealth. Geography had the largest impact on why certain places are wealthier than others.