Introduction

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For most of human history, human beings struggled against the forces of Nature and their own limitations, eking out an existence based on primitive living conditions. Gradually, with the passage of thousands of years, during which they lived their lives as hunters and gatherers, people turned to settlement along major rivers, began to grow staple crops, used technology to meet their needs, and increasingly worked together in groups for common purposes. In the process, they created civilizations.

By the fourth millennium B.C.E. in the Near East, ancient peoples were well on their way to becoming societies with distinct economic, political, social and cultural characteristics, having their own particular interests and value systems. In the area which became known as the Fertile Crescent, the focus of this chapter, we will see how these early cultures, remarkably diverse yet assimilating and influencing each other, laid the framework for what we know as civilization today.