THREE TIME PERIODS OF EARLY HISTORY

1. Paleolithic or “Old Stone”

Tamed fire Spoken Language Art Invention of tools “Ice Ages”

2. MESOLITHIC OR “MIDDLE STONE”

Gradual progress of Gathering food

Communities Weapons Art

3. NEOLITHIC OR “NEW STONE”

• Domesticated animals and plants•Farming revolution•Growth of villages•Earliest civilizations

• Jericho (Israel)

• Catal Huyuk (Turkey)

•Bigger populations•Trade•Specialization

FIRST CIVILIZATIONS

The beginnings of world history?

5 of the major religions of the world believed that life began somewhere in the Mesopotamia region.

COMMUNITIES VS. CIVILIZATIONS (CIVILIZATIONS WERE MORE COMPLEX)

•Earliest Civilizations developed in Southern Iraq

•Between the Tigris and Euphrates•The area was called Mesopotamia

•Which is the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent

•Fertile Crescent = Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Israel, Jordan, and parts of Turkey and Iran

•One of these regions in the Fertile Crescent was Sumer (located in Southern Iraq)

•Sumer + Fertile Crescent = Cradle of Civilization

SUMER’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION ( ZIGGURAT PICTURED ABOVE)

Earliest known civilization!

Greatest invention was writing = cuneiformOldest known story = Epic of Gilgamesh

Wagon wheel Sail BoatPlowGeometryCalendarCity-States

THE WORLDS FIRST EMPIRES

Akkadians – Northern Mesopotamia

The king of the Akkadians was Sargon

He conquered ALL of Mesopotamia and established the worlds first empire

The empire would last 200 yrs

KING OF BABYLON - HAMMURABI

Next would be the Babylonian Empire with King Hammurabi

Best known for his code of laws

“The Ordeal” Still used by some Bedouin tribes today

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE BAYBLONIANS

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Iraq.

THE ASSYRIANS

The heartland of Assyria lies in present day Northern Iraq.

The remains of the ancient capital of Assyria, Nineveh, lie next to Mosul in Northern Iraq.

ASSYRIAN ARMY

•Well organized•Professional Soldiers•Used iron weapons (from the Hittites)•Scattered their enemies

NINEVEH

Capital city of the Assyrian Empire (about 1000 years after Hammurabi)

Nineveh had one of the world’s first libraries (25,000 tablets)

CHALDEANS WERE KNOWN AS THE MEDES

Captured Nineveh and shortly after the Assyrian empire fell

Most Chaldeans were descendants of the Babylonian people who made up Hammurabi’s empire about 1,200 yrs earlier

King Nebuchadnezzar controlled all of Mesopotamia

He rebuilt Babylon and it quick became the world’s largest and richest city

Developed the first 7-Day Calendar

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

THE ACHAEMENID EMPIRE OR PERSIAN EMPIRE

Persians would conquer the Medes about 100 years later

Most territory was Iran

The empire took its unified form with a central administration around Pasargadae erected by Cyrus the Great. The empire ended up conquering and enlarging the Median empire to include in addition Egypt and Asia Minor. During the reigns of Darius I and his son Xerxes I it engaged in military conflict with some of the major city-states of Ancient Greece, and although it came close to defeating the Greek army this war ultimately led to the empire's overthrow.