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Effects of geography on civilization
Ancient Egypt a very short introduction
Ancient Egypt a very short introduction
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Geography is the foundation to how civilizations and societies develop. Based on location, geography determines the amount of water available, temperature, available resources, and a variety of essentials. To form a civilization, the geography gives insight to whether a community can sustain, and how people need to adapt to continue growing. Ancient civilizations had to take many factors into account, and learn to adapt to the environment to become as advanced as they were. General geographical features which have an essential role in shaping societies include rivers, seas, and the flora of what the natural environment provides.
Rivers are a natural water source for civilizations, which is needed for a civilization to sustain. In Ancient Egypt,
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Throughout the Indian Ocean, the sea was used as a place of Trade for the people of South Asia to reach out to other communities. By learning to gage the difference of the annual monsoon winds, Southwest Asia and Africa were able to interact with one another (Hanson 61). Different trades were marked with Merchant Seals, usually printed with a figure of an animal, and found all along the different trade routes (Ancient India ppt 14). South Asia used the Indian Ocean to export goods such as “pepper, ivory, and precious stones” (Hanson 62). Trade routes used by the South Asians provided multiple trade routes, communication, and interactions with other civilizations. The Greeks also used the sea to expand into different lands. The Greeks used the Mediterranean Sea to not only expand land, however to become well skilled in creating trade centers (Hanson 118). The Greeks also used the Mediterranean Sea to fertilize their farms by creating irrigation tunnels, much like the Ancient Mesopotamians and the Ancient Egyptians. However, unlike the Ancient Mesopotamians and Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks had to use the Mediterranean Sea, for no rivers flowed through the land (Hanson 118). While both the South Asians and Greek benefited from the sea by using the water to create more trade, The Greeks were also able to use the sea to help fertilize the …show more content…
The rivers helped Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia grow by helping agriculture, however, had to be gaged for destructive floods. The Indian Ocean helped South Asia expand trading routes to Africa, while the Mediterranean Sea not only helped the Greeks expand, however also provide water for agriculture. The natural flora of Ancient Egypt helped create a writing material in which Egyptians could document their daily lives, while the plants and grains which grew in Ancient China not only helped the people populate and thrive, however also had a deeper connection into values and traditions. Every civilization is effected by the geography around, and each civilization has to find ways to adapt and use the natural resources around them to develop. Each civilization found ways to use their natural resources and later influence other nations to adopt patterns and thrive as
The climate ancient Egypt is very hot and dry making it very hard for people to get water and grow their crops. So many people went to go live near the Nile River so they can get water and grow their crops The Nile River flows north into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate to and from as well as through their new environments. Over Time the explorers began to discover the relationships within their environments and original occupants of the lands as well as the regions in which they now occupied.
The Nile helped get Egyptians from place to place fast and efficiently. For example, in the image there are many boats floating down the Nile River. (Doc. C) This shows that the Nile helped get things and people down the river as demonstrated in the image. This also shows that the Egyptians would travel in packs to get messages more efficient from place to place by boat. The Nile River also helped develop basic building and logical skills to make sure the boats got down the river fast and efficient. For example, in Doc. C, the image shows bigger boats pulling smaller boats in large packs. This proves that the Nile helped shape basic building skills because without the Nile, they wouldn’t know how to efficiently pull boats down the river in big packs to get resources to other communities. This also proves that without the Nile the Egyptians wouldn’t be as logical because without it they wouldn’t have figured out how to pull the boats down the Nile the fastest way possible. Overall the Nile helped develop a transportation system as well as building skills from the Nile
Geography has provided natural resources and boundaries for cultures continuously over many generations. The topography led civilization to have protection from other cultures and plentiful natural resources that they used for human survival or for an economic profit. With a good amount of resources available, cultures like India and China thrived in the creation and expansion of their civilizations. Geography helped India and China civilization develop their culture, spread their religion, and determine the rate at which each civilization’s ideas were transferred. The physical features that India and China lived on helped their cultures form and thrive into their current form.
The Nile River helped shape Ancient Egypt into the civilization we know of today. There were a lot of contributing factors that the Nile had on Egypt. For example, the Nile allowed for transportation between the surrounding cities. The Nile River could be navigated all year long, and this was a way that the cities could communicate. Egypt is located in Northeastern Africa and has the Libyan and Arabian deserts surrounding the river. Without the river, Egypt would have remained a desert and not been transformed into the civilization that we know it as. The Nile River was truly considered “the gift of Egypt” because the Nile economically, socially, and spiritually provided support for Egypt; without the Nile, Egypt would have remained a desert
In Ancient Greece they use many of their geography to help them be the civilization that they wanted to be. The mountains help them be isolated and separate from other city-state making them more independent. They use the Mediterranean Sea to provide farming to provide additional crops, but they became master sailors and developed a large trading network to be able to trade with others. The climate was always hot and dry, which sometimes affected the growth of the crops for that season.
"All of Egypt is the gift of the Nile." It was the Greek historian Herodotus who made that observation. The remarkable benefits of the Nile are clear to everyone, but through history he was the first to talk about it and consider its fascination. Through history, the Nile played a major role in the building of civilizations. The first civilizations to appear in history started on a river valley or in a place where resources are numerous and example of these are in India where Indus river is found and Tigris where Euphrates is found and many other places (cradles of civilization).
Human activity has major effects on geography. When studying the earth you can come to several conclusions about the geography of any particular civilization. Distribution of life in the civilization allows you to analyze whether their geography is their own destiny. Do people control their own destiny? Is geography something that people can control? Technology is really the key to why geography can be overcome by any people.
Approximately 5500 years ago four of the worlds' most prestigious ancient river civilizations had emerged. Our world has been left in astonishment and awe wondering how these civilizations were developed. Egypt and Mesopotamia were the first ancient river civilizations to create cities and their own ways of living. Society, geography, and religion played an enormous role in the development of the ancient cities. Although there is evidence of early Sumerian contact with the Egyptians, Egypt's civilization was largely self-generated and its history and cultural patterns differed from Mesopotamia.
The Nile River is arguably one of the most important water sources in the world and has an extremely rich history dating back thousands of years. Without the Nile, the ancient Egyptian civilization would have never existed. Egypt is basically a whole lot of sand and not much else, except they have the Nile River flowing through it, on it’s way to the Mediterranean sea. The ancient Egyptians lived along the Nile River and it provided them with abundant water, food (fish) and the opportunity to develop agriculture along it’s banks. The Nile River was also used for transportation and trade with other regions because land travel was more difficult than floating on the river. The Ancient Egyptians were at the mercy of the seasonal flooding and droughts but learned to work within the natural system of the River and weather cycles (Carnegie Museum of Natural History). Modern people, however were more interested in conquering nature, rather than living in harmony with it.
Providing extremely fertile soil is one, if not the most important, roles the Nile River played in the life of the ancient Egyptians. By providing fertile soil, the Nile made it easy for cities and civilizations to grow alongside the banks of the river. This fertile soil comes from the annual flooding of the Nile. This replenishes the top soil with silt deposits that hold much needed nutrients for crops to grow. Ancient Egyptians developed highly complex irrigation methods to maximize the effect of the Nile waters. When the Nile overflows in mid summer, Egyptians divert the waters through the use of canals and dams. As the water seeped into the farm land, rich deposits of silt ensured a good harvest for the year. This allows the civilizations of Egyptians to grow enough food to feed the community. Without the annual flooding of the Nile, Egyptians would have a very difficult time growing necessary amount food to sustain life. Most of the land in the Egyptian nation is dry desert. Very little rain falls year round here. The river provides the needed water to grow the crops as well as provide drinking water for the people. Th...
Since the beginning of humankind, the study of geography has captured the imagination of the people. In ancient times, geography books extolled tales of distant lands and dreamed of treasures. The ancient Greeks created the word "geography" from the roots "ge" for earth and "grapho" for "to write." These people experienced many adventures and needed a way to explain and communicate the differences between various lands. Today, researchers in the field of geography still focus on people and cultures (cultural geography), and the planet earth (physical geography).
The six concepts of geography are location, region, spatial pattern, spatial interaction, human/ environmental interaction, and culture. The location is everything; it is the starting point in geography. The region is the area of the land with consistent recognizable features, it has variations in its physical features. There are mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, oceans, lakes, deserts and wilderness, variations occur in its social and cultural features too. The spatial pattern is when a pattern is found in places that are far apart. Spatial interaction is when geographers believe one event can lead to a change in another location that is far away. Managing change is a key aspect of geography, geographers learn from past changes and predict and future ones. Human/ environmental interaction is the impact humans have on the environment. Interaction is closely linked to change. Again, in both physical and human aspects of the subject, geographers want to find out how things are linked together and how one aspect affects another. Lastly culture has different impacts on the environment, natural resources, concern issues of how people think about the world and how they communicate that thinking to
The Nile River had great influence on Ancient Egyptian culture. The Nile is the longest river in the world, that is located in Africa, was the source of livelihood for the ancient Egyptians as it was used for trade and hunting, as well as, drinking and fishing. It was also used for bathing and other hygiene purposes. It was the source of Ancient Egypt’s wealth, treasures, and the greatest arteries supplied the land with blessings and drown ancient Egyptians in various graces through the ages as the emitter of life in Egypt and the source of its existence, because it watered ancient Egyptian’s lands. The Nile had the greatest impact on timeless civilization that originated on it in the past ages, the Nile held oldest civilization immortalized in history. Ancient Egyptians could not have survived without the Nile River, which in essence, inspired their way of living, “The country’s verdant green fields and bountiful food resources depended on the fertile soil of the Nile flood plain” (Silverman 12). In turn, many ancient
Geography is the study of Earth and its physical features. It is the study This includes its landscapes, peoples, places, and environments. In the study of geography, there are five themes; location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region.