By 8,000 years ago, there were many villages of irrigation farmers settled
along the major rivers north of modern Baghdad. Some were beginning to
build substantial canal systems.
By 7,000 years ago, villages were multiplying, particularly along the
Euphrates to the south of modern Baghdad, in the lands of what would
later be known as “Sumer.” Villages of the Ubaid culture often appear in
small clusters near small towns with up to 4,000 people. They dug canals
sometimes several kilometers long, grew barley and dates, and kept cattle
and sheep. They also ¿ shed and caught water birds.
Rising productivity encouraged population growth and the emergence
of larger towns that provided markets and other services to surrounding
villages. Some, such as Eridu, contained large temples from perhaps as early
as 6,000 years ago.
As populations increased, trading systems began to link entire regions into
networks of trade. Catal Huyuk, in Turkey (see Lecture Twenty-Six), owed
its wealth to the trade in obsidian, a volcanic glass that is extremely hard
and can be used to make sharp and durable blades. Obsidian from Catal
Huyuk and other sites was traded over many hundreds of miles. Other trade
goods in early Agrarian Mesopotamia included shells, precious stones such
as turquoise, and eventually pottery. By 8,000 years ago, the spread of
distinctive forms of pottery such as Hala¿ an ware and the presence of other
goods such as obsidian, traded over hundreds of miles, shows that signi¿ cant
exchange networks were evolving between the multiplying villages
of Mesopotamia.
The multiplication of villages, the appearance of an increasing number of
larger towns, and the development of extensive trade networks had created
the largest concentrations of people and resources and the most active
systems of regional exchanges ever known. Now we’re ready to describe the
appearance of the ¿ rst Agrarian civilizations in ancient Sumer. Ŷ