History Lectures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

History Lectures - Essay Example In the years that followed, humans started to come up with ways to develop reliable food supplies through the planting of crops and domesticating of animals (Levack, Muir, Mans, & Veldman, 2010). People began to live longer, and as a result, were able to increase their population. Most people became farmers, increasing food supplies to the point of excess, with which they would trade and barter with others (Levack et al., 2010). With these initial commerce practices, the civilized societies slowly emerged. Around 6000 B.C.E., the picture in Southwest Asia presented that of farming and interactive communities. From these communities, the Sumerians from Southern Mesopotamia, slowly emerged, and they built cities to govern their ways of life (World History, 2007). It is important to note that the existence of these cities were dependent on the ability to control the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers because most of these cities relied on water for their sustenance and for the support of their farms and their livestock (Dellapenna and Gupta, 2008). As in contemporary rule, the traditional Sumerian cities were also ruled by a leader; these cities were controlled by kings. The people from these times worshipped the sun and the moon and sometimes inanimate objects and they built temples to honor their gods. They made a valuable contribution to society with their introduction of cuneiform writing which is now the basic foundations of our current writing and reading (Levack et al., 2010). War and conquest were common themes during these early times. The Sumerians were no exception, as they were conquered by the Akkadian empire (Northern Babylonia which is now a portion of Iraq) (Abrams and Wang, 2003) and made a part of a multi-ethnic empire being exposed to various languages and cultures. Other societies emerged at this time, bringing about the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures. A significant contribution by the Assyrians (later