The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East incorporating the Levant, Ancient Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt, known as the "Cradle of Civilization. For things named Crescent see Crescent (disambiguation. In art and symbolism a crescent is generally the shape produced when a The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. See also Names of the Levant The Levant (lə'vænt is a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia, roughly bounded on the north by the Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now The cradle of civilization is any of the possible locations for the emergence of Civilization. " The term "Fertile Crescent" was coined by University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted, around 1900. The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. James Henry Breasted ( August 27 1865 &ndash December 2, 1935) was an American Archaeologist and Historian. Year 1900 ( MCM) was an exceptional Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar The region was named the "Fertile Crescent" because of its rich soil and half-moon shape. The Fertile Crescent was divided into 1) the eastern portion, consisting of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, called Mesopotamia (land between the rivers), and 2) the western, or Mediterranean, portion.
Watered by the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris rivers and covering some 400,000-500,000 square kilometers, the region extends from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea around the north of the Syrian Desert and through the Jazirah and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. The Nile (النيل, Ancient Egyptian iteru or Ḥ'pī, Coptic piaro or phiaro) is a major north-flowing River The Euphrates ( ( Arabic: ar نهر الفرات; Turkish: tr Fırat Syriac: syr ܦܪܬ; Hebrew: he פרת The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great Rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of southeastern "Riverine" redirects here For the use of that term in Maritime geography, see there The Syrian Desert (بادية الشام badiyah ash sham also known as the Syro-Arabian desert is a combination of Steppe and true Desert that is located in parts For other uses see the disambiguation Jazira. Al-Jazira ( Arabic, الجزيرة is the traditional Arabic name for the modern-day regions of northwestern Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region is an extension of the These areas correspond to the present-day Egypt, Israel , and Lebanon and parts of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey and south-western Iran. This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Lebanon (ˈlɛbənɒn Arabic: ar لبنان Lubnān) officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic (ar الجمهورية اللبنانية Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (الأردنّ al-Urdunn) is an Arab country in Southwest Asia spanning the southern Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. The State of Kuwait ( دولة الكويت IPA [dawlatt̪ alkuwajt̪]) is a sovereign Arab Emirate on the coast of the Persian Gulf, enclosed Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. The population of the Nile River Basin is about 70 million, the Jordan River Basin about 20 million, and the Tigris and Euphrates Basins about 30 million, giving the present-day Fertile Crescent a total population of approximately 120 million, or at least a quarter of the population of the Middle East.
As crucial as rivers were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, they were not the only factor in the area's precocity. Ecologically the area is important as the "bridge" between Africa and Eurasia. Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of For the superstate in George Orwell 's novel see Nations of Nineteen Eighty-Four. This "bridging role" has allowed the Fertile Crescent to retain a greater amount of biodiversity than either Europe or North Africa, where climate changes during the Ice Age led to repeated extinction events due to ecosystems becoming squeezed against the waters of the Mediterranean sea. Biodiversity is the variation of Life forms within a given Ecosystem, Biome or for the entire Earth. Climate change is any long-term significant change in the “average weather” that a given region experiences An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the Temperature of the Earth 's surface and atmosphere resulting in an expansion of continental Ice sheets In Biology and Ecology, extinction is the cessation of existence of a Species or group of taxa. Coupled with the Saharan pump theory, this Middle Eastern land-bridge is of extreme importance to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna, including the spread of humanity. The Sahara Pump Theory explains how flora and fauna left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond to Europe and Asia The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans Asians and Africans in the 15th century In Botany, flora ( Plural: floras or florae has two meanings The first meaning flora of an area or of time period, refers to all Fauna is all of the Animal life of any particular region or time The fact that this area has borne the brunt of the tectonic divergence between the African and Arabian plates, and the converging Arabian and Eurasian plates, has also made this region a very diverse zone of high snow-covered mountains, fertile broad aluvial basins and desert plateaux, which has also increased its biodiversity further and enabled the survival into historic times of species not found elsewhere. Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων tektōn "builder" or "mason" describes the large scale motions of Earth 's Lithosphere Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων tektōn "builder" or "mason" describes the large scale motions of Earth 's Lithosphere
Furthermore the Fertile Crescent had a climate diversity and major climatic changes which encouraged the evolution of many "r" type annual plants, which produce more edible seeds than "K" type perennial plants, and the region's dramatic variety of elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. Climate encompasses the temperatures humidity rainfall atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorogical factors in a given region over long periods of In Ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of traits which promote success in particular environments Botanically an annual plant is a Plant that usually germinates, Flowers and dies in one Year. In Ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of traits which promote success in particular environments A perennial plant or perennial ( Latin per, "through" annus, "year" is a Plant that lives for more than Most importantly, as Jared Diamond shows in Guns, Germs, and Steel, the Fertile Crescent possessed the wild progenitors of the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i. TemplateInfobox writer --> Jared Mason Diamond (b 10 September, 1937) is an American Evolutionary biologist Guns Germs and Steel The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond, professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA The Neolithic founder crops (or primary domesticates) are the eight Plant Species that were domesticated by early Holocene ( Pre-Pottery Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture e. wild progenitors to emmer wheat, einkorn, barley, flax, chick pea, pea, lentil, bitter vetch), and four of the five most important species of domesticated animals — cows, goats, sheep, and pigs — and the fifth species, the horse, lived nearby. Emmer wheat ( Triticum dicoccon) also known as farro especially in Italy is a low yielding awned Wheat. Einkorn wheat (from German Einkorn, literally "one grain" can refer either to the wild species of Wheat, Triticum boeoticum (the spelling Barley ( Hordeum vulgare) is an annual Cereal Grain, which serves as a major animal Feed crop, with smaller amounts used for Flax (also known as common flax or linseed) (binomial name Linum usitatissimum) is a member of the genus Linum The chickpea ( Cicer arietinum) (also garbanzo bean, Indian pea, ceci bean, bengal gram, chana, kadale kaalu, A pea (inaccurately called a '''sweet pea''' by food distubutors is most commonly the small spherical Seed or the seed-pod of the Legume Pisum The lentil or daal or pulse ( Lens culinaris) is a bushy Annual plant of the legume family grown for its lens-shaped Seeds The bitter vetch ( Vicia ervilia) is an ancient grain legume crop of the Mediterranean region Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domesticated Ungulates a member of the Subfamily Bovinae of the family The domestic goat ( Capra aegagrus hircus) is a subspecies of goat Domesticated from the Wild goat of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe Pigs, also called hogs or' swine', are Ungulates which have been domesticated as sources of food leather and similar products since ancient times The horse ( Equus caballus) is a hoofed ( Ungulate) Mammal, one of eight living species of the family Equidae.
As a result the Fertile Crescent has an impressive record of past human activity. As well as possessing many sites with the skeletal and cultural remains of both pre-modern and early modern humans (e. The term Archaic Homo sapiens refers generally to the earliest members of the species Homo sapiens. g. at Kebara Cave in Israel), later Pleistocene hunter-gatherers and Epipalaeolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers (the Natufians), this area is most famous for its sites related to the origins of agriculture. Kebara Cave ( Hebrew: מערת כבארה Me'arat Kebbara, Arabic: مغارة الكبارة Mugharat al-Kabara) is an Israeli The Pleistocene ('plaɪstəsin is the epoch from 18 million to 10000 years BP covering the world's recent period A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild Foraging and Hunting The Epipaleolithic is a term used for the "final Upper Palaeolithic industries occurring at the end of the final glaciation which appear to merge technologically into the The Natufian culture (natʏˈfjẽː existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant. The Neolithic Revolution was the first Agricultural revolution &mdashthe transition from hunting and gathering communities and bands to Agriculture and The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements (referred to as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)), which date to around 9,000 BCE (and includes sites such as Jericho). Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (short PPNA around 9000 BC represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (short PPNA around 9000 BC represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Jericho ( Arabic, ʼArīḥā; Hebrew, Standard Yəriḥo Tiberian Yərîḫô This region, alongside Mesopotamia (which lies to the east of the Fertile Crescent, between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates), also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age. In Anthropology and Archaeology, a complex society is a social formation that is otherwise described as a formative or developed State (i There is also early evidence from this region for writing, and the formation of state-level societies. A state is a political association with effective Sovereignty over a geographic Area and representing a Population. This has earned the region the nickname "The Cradle of Civilization. A Civilization is a society in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements "
Both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is today Turkey. Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year, except Northern Mesopotamia which had just enough rain to make some farming possible.
Since the Bronze Age, the region's natural fertility has been greatly extended by irrigation works, upon which much of its agricultural production continues to depend. The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for Soil fertility is the characteristic of soil that supports abundant plant life Irrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil usually for assisting in growing crops The last two millennia have seen repeated cycles of decline and recovery as past works have fallen into disrepair through the replacement of states, to be replaced under their successors. Another ongoing problem has been salination — the gradual concentration of salt and other minerals in soils with a long history of irrigation. Soil salinity is the salt content in the soil Salt affected soils are caused by excess accumulation of salts typically most pronounced at the soil surface
In the contemporary era, river waters remain a potential source of friction in the region. Water disputes are some of the world's oldest forms of disputes The Jordan lies on the borders of Israel, the kingdom of Jordan and the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. This article is about the Jordan River and its valley in western Asia Turkey and Syria each control about a quarter of the length of the Euphrates, on whose lower reaches Iraq is still heavily dependent.
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The Neolithic Revolution was the first Agricultural revolution &mdashthe transition from hunting and gathering communities and bands to Agriculture and A Civilization is a society in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements
Dictionary
Fertile Crescent
-proper noun
- (Ancient History) A cresent shaped strip of fertile land stretching from present-day Iraq through eastern Turkey and down the Syrian and Israeli coasts.
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