World History I

Chapter 2: Agrarian-Urban Centers of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean
11,500-600 BCE

10: Mon, Oct 6, 2025

This assignment is under revision for 2023-2024.

Please read the chapter and take the quiz by midnight on Sun, Oct 5, 2025.
Please also post in the forum for the day a short essay in response to this question:

Two significant events occur in the Fertile Crescent: the rise of agriculture and the rise of cities. What resources (material and immaterial) are necessary to support the shift from hunter-gatherer cultures to city-states? How does resource distribution and allocation change as hunter-gatherer communities evolve into city-states? Who controls resources?

Consider the following:

• Natural resources to support both farming and urban development.
• Language and writing to support urban development, including trade.
• Crafts such as pottery, textile weaving, metallurgy and the importance of their products to both agriculture and urbanization.
• How is population itself a resource?

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