River Valley Civilization Similarities

River valley civilization are the civilizations that first thrived and controlled the world. We have gone over four river valley civilizations; Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, and China. In this paper we will go into detail on how these were similar and how they were different. Before we begin we have to learn about the three things that all civilizations are built upon and they are; Oceans/Lakes, Rivers/Streams/Creeks, and Trade Routes/Railroads. We are also going to look at another three things; Government, Religion, and how they tried to control nature. So here we go! All of the civilizations are established by a source of water. Mesopotamia was built around the Tigris and Euphrates, Egypt was built around the Nile and the Nile Delta, the Indus civilization was built around the Indus River, and China was built around the Huang He (The Yellow River). All of the civilizations had to adapt to the ever-changing rivers. Mesopotamia had to deal with the constant flooding of the rivers. They had to make irrigation systems to help them to control river. Egypt also had to deal with the flooding of the Nile. The Nile flooded at the same time every year so the Egyptians knew how to plant and survive along the Nile. The Indus River had floods but they were unpredictable and sometimes they would take out whole

During this whole unit I have learned that even though we think we are very smart people, if we look back at this time period we will quickly realize that the ancient human beings were very intelligent people. For example, people built 481 feet tall pyramids with stone blocks that weigh 2-15 tons each with only their bare hands and a few pulleys. The first pyramid at Giza was built by Pharaoh Khufu, reigned about 2551 B.C. This pyramid is the most famous, The Great Pyramid of Giza. So indeed they were very smart