Around 4500 BCE humans settled in Mesopotamia. Within a few centuries, the Sumerians developed what we today call the cradle of civilization.

SUMMARY

• Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, became the cradle of civilization due to its fertile land and the development of irrigation, which supported the growth of city-states like Ur, Eridu, and Uruk with populations over 50,000 around 5,000 years ago.
• The Sumerians innovated with the world’s first written language, cuneiform, on clay tablets, facilitating record-keeping for food supplies and trade. This advancement, alongside their development of a numerical system, laid foundational aspects of modern society.
• The decline of the Sumerian civilization around 2000 BCE was attributed to agricultural productivity loss due to soil salinization from irrigation. This led to the rise of subsequent empires in Mesopotamia, such as the Akkadian, Babylonian, and ᴀssyrian empires.

Sumer, as the cradle of civilization, was completely unknown until its secrets were shoveled out from the desert sands. In the second half of the 19th century, French and British archaeologists traveled to what is now Iraq to hunt for finds from the ᴀssyrian period. By chance, they came across a much older civilization. Until then, the enormous amounts of silt that the Euphrates and Tigris brought with them from the mountains of Turkey had succeeded in erasing and hiding the traces of the past. When Sumer was excavated and dated, the history known to man was radically expanded.

What Is the Location of the Cradle of Civilization?

From a natural perspective, Mesopotamia is a predominantly flat landscape, with extensive, vast sand plains and sparse vegetation. There is a swampy landscape down towards the Persian Gulf, where the sea has gradually receded since the last ice age. A desert climate defines the weather. Rainfall is sporadic, unbearably H๏τ in the middle of the day, while it could be bitterly cold in winter and at night.

Even though it hardly rained, the core regions of the Mesopotamian civilization were constantly hit by devastating floods caused by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Since the flat landscape down towards the sea had been created by mud and sand, there was no stone to build with. Nor did trees grow that could be used to make houses or boats.

One of the key reasons why Mesopotamia became the cradle of civilization was its location. The region was situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, providing a constant water source. The rivers also facilitated trade and transportation, allowing people to travel easily from one place to another.

The two great rivers formed a system that created the right conditions for artificial irrigation to be developed on a large scale. There is a small difference between the almost parallel river courses of the Euphrates and the Tigris, before they flow together and form what we today call the Shatt al-Arab. The rivers created unique opportunities for artificial irrigation and waterborne transport.

History Began In Sumer

Around 3500 BCE the Sumerians established a society that would create world history. The Sumerians called themselves “the people with the black heads”, and their land meant “the land of the people with the black heads”. Sumer had an ethnically diverse population, so the history of Sumer is not about the history of a nation or a people, but about the history of an area.

Sumerian civilization was the first society in history to be able to force the forces of nature to be the servant of society. Sumer developed a system of artificial irrigation that made the land so fertile that it was able to feed several city-states with an ever-growing population. This eventually led to an urban revolution which would make it possible for the majority of the world’s population to live in cities. Ur, Eridu, and Uruk all had an estimated population of upwards of 50,000 inhabitants 5,000 years ago.

The striking one-liner that “history began in Sumer” emphasizes how crucial this society was in human development, but it is also an exaggeration. History doesn’t really start anywhere.