Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent is a region extending from the eastern Mediterranean through Mesopotamia, where early farming and urban societies developed.
Neolithic Revolution: The transition in which human communities adopted farming and settled life. It names the broad shift whose earliest developments occurred across parts of the Fertile Crescent.
Tigris: A major river flowing through Turkey and Iraq before joining the Euphrates. Its basin formed the eastern river corridor of ancient Mesopotamia.
Sumer: An ancient civilization in southern Mesopotamia, known for its cities and early writing. Sumerian city-states became a defining urban society in the region.
Indus Valley civilization: A Bronze Age civilization centered on settlements along the Indus River and its tributaries. It offers a later, distinct example of urban civilization beyond the Fertile Crescent.
Natufian culture: A late Epipaleolithic culture of the Levant, known for sedentary settlements and intensive use of wild cereals. Its settlements show that some communities in the western Fertile Crescent became partly sedentary before farming.
Euphrates: A major river flowing from Turkey through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris. Its valley linked settlements across the northern and southern parts of the region.
Uruk: An ancient Mesopotamian city whose growth in the fourth millennium BCE helped define early urbanism. Its scale and institutions show how settled communities developed into cities.
Yellow River: A major river in northern China, associated with early agricultural societies and states. Its agricultural history provides a comparison with the region's river-based societies.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A: An early Neolithic period in the Levant, marked by settled communities before pottery became common. Its villages document early settlement in the region during the transition to food production.
Levant: The eastern Mediterranean lands encompassing present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and nearby areas. It forms the western arc of the Fertile Crescent.