Fertile Crescent
Topic: Bronze Age Civilisations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation"
Meaning
The Fertile Crescent is a curved belt of land along the foothills of the Zagros and Taurus mountains. It runs from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Its soils and rain gave it very good farming potential. Farming began here c. 12,000 years ago, and copper tools arrived c. 4500 BCE. It is one of the world's earliest farming regions, and Mesopotamian civilisation grew up beside it.
Example
In the green plains of north-eastern Mesopotamia, part of this belt, rain-fed farming began between 7000 and 6000 BCE. Wheat, barley, peas and pulses were grown, and sheep and goats were kept.
Don't confuse with
- Mesopotamia: only the land between the Euphrates and Tigris. The first cities grew in its southern desert, where rainfall was too low for crops and farming depended on river irrigation, not rain.
Related concepts
- Mesopotamian civilisation
- Sumerian civilisation
- Babylonia
- Sumerian language
- Akkadian language
- Aramaic