Sumerian on the Rise

Based on its name, what do you know about Mesopotamia?

• It is located between two rivers
• It is located in mountain foothills
• It was home for a large population     
• It was home of the world’s first cities

What change, caused by farming in northern Mesopotamia, led people to move south?

• The population increased, and there wasn’t enough food 
• The people fought, and they needed to find new places to live
• The climate changed, and it got too dry to keep living there
• The soil got overused, and plants could no longer grow there

Sumerians used levees, canals, and dams to… 

• keep water away from neighboring towns
• control the amount of water in the valley
• make ponds where they could wash clothes 
• create waterfalls so they had water power

 What happened when people from many villages used Sumerian irrigation systems?

• Cities had to have moats for storing water outside their walls
• Cities had to limit the number of people who could have farms
• People in the villages had to develop a language they could all speak
• People in the villages had to work together to take care of the system

Why were Sumerian settlements called city-states?

• Each settlement served the Sumerian empire
• Each settlement had its own ruler and farmland  
• Each settlement had its own irrigation system
• Each settlement recorded the empire’s history

There was plenty of food in the hills for all the people, so they built a bigger city in the mountains.

• True
• False

___________________________________________ caused Mesopotamians  to build irrigation systems

• food shortages
• uncontrolled water supply
• conflict
• working together

Working together to maintain irrigation systems, Mesopotamians formed _________________________________

• smaller communities
• a new city
• larger communities
• small tribes

Conflict over water caused Mesopotamians to ________________________________________ around their cities.

• build walls and moats
• spread out
• build larger farmlands
• move far away from

All civilizations REQUIRE _________________ in order to survive.

• mountains
• a water supply
• plains
• big bugs