by Alicia Black

Created on: April 03, 2008

Over 7,300 years ago, people made the first step forward into creating a stable advanced human civilization. As far as humans know, Mesopotamia was the first area that had civilized human beings. It was a crescent shaped piece of land along side the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The rivers made it possible for a successful habitat. There was plenty of water and crops for anyone to survive. In the beginning there were three territories in this area. Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer made up the Mesopotamian area and they are the people who made successful advancements towards modern human society.

Dating all the way back to the ninth millennium BC we can find texts written from the Sumerian's. They are believed to be the first culture to achieve a working written communication. They used wedges to create pictures and signs in clay. This process was called cuneiform and it was the beginning of recording. The clay would harden and it became much easier to communicate messages back and forth without the help of a messengers memory. People now could record activities and receipts. There were over 1,200 symbols by the time it was at its prime. As early as 3200 BC people began to adapt this communication into their daily lives. In the beginning not everyone could read, or write. It was said to be a privilege that the Gods could only give. If you were chosen, at the age of eight you would begin your training that would last until you turned twenty. Once you finished your schooling you were then titled as a Scribe. Not only did they create the first written language, but they also created a schooling system.

After finding so many ancient texts, experts could easily find answers to the beginning of civilization. There are still a lot of questions, but we were able to get a few answers. People gathered together around the water and learned how to farm. They realized that they could grow their own crops for food as well as keep certain live stock around. These were the first people to care for livestock. For those who lived further inland, water was becoming a problem. If there was a drought, the crops would not grow. Soon they would figure out how to bring the water to the crops with irrigation. From there they also learned how to make farming a bit more simple with the invention of the seed plow. This simple device could turn up the land while depositing the seeds. It saved the farmer a lot of time and energy.

As farmers grew their crops they would soon realize that they did

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