Middle East
3500BC
Map of the Middle East 3500 BC
Essays on The History of the Middle East
The History of the Middle East to 2500 BC - The History of the Middle East to 1500 BC - The History of the Middle Easto to 1000 BC - The History of the Middle East to 500 BC - The History of the Middle East to 200 BC - The History of the Middle East to 30 BC - The History of the Middle East to 200 AD - The History of the Middle East to 500 AD
A region of grasslands and great river plains, the Middle East was the natural home to the first agriculture and the first urban civilizations.
The Middle East is a huge area, with many different kinds of climate and landscape. Large parts are covered by desert or grassland; elsewhere there are highlands and mountains covered by grasslands and forests. Running through all these zones are long rivers, especially the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, and the Nile in Egypt.
The highlands of the Middle East are the natural habitat of grasses, such as wild wheat and barley, and it was almost inevitable that the agricultural traditon based on these crops, which would eventually cover so much of the world, began here, around 10,000 years ago.
... and of civilization
Large parts of the Middle East lie within a hot, dry zone, where rainfall is insufficient to grow crops such as wheat and barley. The melting snows in the high mountains and the spring rains in the hills carry fresh water and silt down into the lowlands, flooding the dry river plains and depositing a fertile mud for miles around.
This means that the land surrounding the lower reaches of these rivers is potentially very fertile. However, it is too dry for farming most of the year - except during the spring and early summer, when there is too much water!
The gradual mastery of this environment by farmers developing irrigation techniques, beginning around 5000 BC, led to the rise of the first civilizations in world history, those of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, and of Ancient Egypt in the Nile Valley.
The communities which came to inhabit the broad river plains of Mesopotamia naturally came to devote much of their land to fields of wheat and barley, as this was the most productive use for it. In the highlands and grasslands surrounding this the river plains, however, keeping sheep and goats was a good use of the less fertile terrain.
The importance of stock-rearing increased as the expanding populations of crop-growers in the river plains increased, and had a growing requirement for the animal products which they lacked (wool, skin, meat, cheese and so on).
As a result, societies grew up on the highlands and plains of the Middle East which specialised in stock-rearing, and took to a more nomadic way of life than before. These nomads were to play a large part in the history of the region.
The same was far less true for Egypt, where the Nile Valley is surrounded by desert. Apart from near the banks of the river Nile itself, human habition is only possible in the oases.
Further information on the Middle East up to 3500 BC:
For the origins and early development of agriculture in this region see The Coming of Farming
For the origins of the first urban civilization, see The Origins of Civilization
For the early phase of the Sumerian civilization see Ancient Mesopotamia
For the early phases of Ancient Egyptian civilization see Ancient Egypt
