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GEOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA Ms. Berry 6th Grade Social Studies Essential Question: • How does geography of an area affect where people lived in the past and today? Warm Up: • What did early civilizations have to have in order to survive? Let’s Pretend… • You are an archeologist, a person who studies past human life based on items people leave behind. • Your job is to excavate, uncover by digging a special site. • If you are lucky, you will uncover artifacts, objects made by humans. Mesopotamia: The Land between Two Rivers • Fertile Crescent is shaped like a crescent moon. • The land is very fertile; it has rich soil good for growing food. • Two rivers that cut through this land are the Tigris and the Euphrates. • The north is a plateau, a high flat area of land • The south is an alluvial plain, low flat area of land formed from fine soils deposited by rivers. Working with Water • The rivers played an important role in the development of the civilizations. • The climate is hot and dry and the rivers were unpredictable and flooded often. • Both rivers began in the Taurus Mountains and flow into the Persian Gulf. • The two rivers often flooded and left behind a layer of silt; a rich fertile mixture of rocks and soil left after flood waters go back down. Benefits of Irrigation • However, there were often droughts; long times with little or no rain. • Farmers were forced to develop a system of irrigation; a system of canals, ditches, dams, and dykes to move water to dry areas. • Irrigation helped farmers prevent and control flooding. • Early settlers would often lose entire crops to floods. What made early settlement possible? • Fertile soil or silt near rivers • Water for drinking and growing crops • Farmers were able to use irrigation systems to control flooding of rivers Geography: Map of Mesopotamia • Label the following: • Bodies of Water• Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea • Mountains• Taurus Mountains, Zagros Mountains • Deserts• Syrian Desert • Rivers• Tigris River, Euphrates River • Cities• Ur and Babylon Geography of Mesopotamia: • Once you have finished labeling, and you have had your map checked, you may color your map. • Color lightly enough to read your labels and make sure your work is neat. • Rivers and bodies of water should be blue • Desert should be yellow • Mountains should be brown • Fertile Crescent should be green Questions?