More handpicked essays just for you.
Effects of soil erosion Essay
What role do humans play in climate change
What role do humans play in climate change
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Soil erosion began with the dawn of agriculture, when people abandoned their hunter-gatherer lifestyles and began using the land for intensive agriculture, thus removing the protective vegetation cover and growing food crops on disturbed soil surfaces. For many civilizations, it is believed that surface wash erosion, that can occur unnoticed until it is too late, was a main contributing factor for their demise. Soil erosion and other degradative processes have destroyed, over the millennia, as much arable land as is now cultivated.
The Phoenicians, the Roman Empire, Mesopotamia, and ancient peoples of present-day Syria and Lebanon are all believed to have collapsed as a result of deforestation, erosion, and salination in the Middle East. In the Indus valley civilizations have suffered the same fate.
The collapse of a 1700-year-old Mayan civilization in Guatemala around 900 A.D. is also attributed to accelerated soil erosion. Mollisols developed on limestone bedrock were easily eroded when the forest was cleared. As the population increased, soil depletion set in and the Maya culture rapidly declined.
Soils of south and Central America supported thriving civilization long before the European settlers discovered the “new world”. Incas conserved soil and water by constructing stone-walled bench terraces such as those at Machu Picchu, Peru. The thin topsoil was rapidly washed away, however, once maintenance of the terrace system was neglected.
Much of Latin America’s export-oriented economy was imposed by violence at the time of conquest.
The Mayan empire was doing well until they started burning down trees. The reason why they fell was not because of other empires, but technically on themselves. In the article “Why Did the Mayan Civilization Collapse? A New Study Points to Deforestation and Climate Change” by Joseph Stromberg has many points on how they fell because of this. In the article it states that, “As a result, the rapid deforestation exacerbated an already severe drought—in the simulation, deforestation reduced precipitation by five to 15 percent and was responsible for 60 percent of the total drying that occurred over the course of a century as the Mayan civilization collapsed” (Stromberg). As the Mayan’s kept burning down the trees the Mayan empire started to get lower and lower. When the precipitation went down, that wasn’t what made the Mayan empire fall
“If the human race didn’t remember anything it would be perfectly happy" (44). Thus runs one of the early musings of Jack Burden, the protagonist of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Throughout the story, however, as Jack gradually opens his eyes to the realities of his own nature and his world, he realizes that the human race cannot forget the past and survive. Man must not only remember, but also embrace the past, because it teaches him the truth about himself and enables him to face the future.
The Mayans did not grew up with technology, they grew by using their instincts. The way Mayan’s grew their crops were all done by their hands. The Mayan people did not use any wildlife such as an ox, bull, nor caribou. The work they have done was purely all muscles. Not only was the Mayan civilization was not polluted, but their population was not massive as well. They had a decent amount of people. They had to balance out their water and food consumption because the weather was bipolar. The weather would be hot for four months and it would rain for six to eight months. The people had to figure out how to save enough water during the hot season and how to preserve their crop during the rainy season. The Mayans somehow knew about the environment more than the people
During the years of 3500 BC to 2500 BC, the geography of a land often impacted a civilizations development in great measures. Depending on the resources available or the detriments present due to certain topographical characteristics like rivers or deserts, a civilization could flourish or collapse. By studying the geographic features of growing societies like the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers as well as the Mediterranean Sea of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the link between developing cultures and geography will be examined through sources, including Egypt: Ancient Culture, Modern Land edited by Jaromir Malek and Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek. To determine the extent of its influence, this investigation will attempt to compare and contrast the role of geography in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, focusing on the civilizations’ various periods of development and settlement.
When analyzing ancient civilization and how it began, there are many elements and aspects that should be considered. Questions such as how did civilization begin? What lead to its creation? Where did it begin, and why in that particular location? Many of these questions can be examined and answered by researching what many believe is the world’s earliest civilization, Mesopotamia. It is widely believed that this region was chosen and supported one of the world’s first civilizations. This area was settled over 10,000 years ago by a group of people known as the Sumerians (Cunningham & Reich, 2010).
The conquest of Latin America was a fairly quick process in which the theme of hegemony was vastly prominent. The cultures of colonialism and competitive nature to obtain wealth through exploitation were the main driving force of hegemony. It is natural to exploit the people of lower class or societal rank for one's own advantage, and that is what happened. As the pressure of power and control became overbearing toward the people, resistance was sure to follow.
The example of societal collapse in which I will be making reference to throughout this essay is the Maya civilization. The Maya civilization is, “probably the best known of all early American civilizations.” (Fagan, 1995) It was at its strongest point between AD 300 AND 900. Around AD 900 was the time of its collapse. This civilization was developed in a densely, tropical forest on either highlands or lowlands. Today to visit a Mayan site, people would go to the modern Mexican state, capital city of Merida. This site was once home to the “New World's most advanced Native American civilization before European arrival.” (Diamond, 2009) Over the years there has been many predictions on what had caused the Maya civilization to collapse. At the moment the most recent cause that geographers and scientists have come up with is that climate change may have had a major impact on this collapse. It is said that the rainfall received during the creation of the civilization was a key factor in the continuity of life for the Mayans. This and the addition of societal factors such as religious beliefs, ethnicity and education all had an affect on their way of life, an effect on their societal well-being. Art and architecture that was formed by the Mayans is the foundation for the archaeologists work today. They look at these features and the ruins of the buildings created to depict the kind of lifestyle they lived. Looking at the art and architecture of a specific civilization or community of the past is just one way that can help to inform future adaptations. Another way in which the Europeans received knowledge on the collapse was that they sent out geographers and researchers not long after the collapse to gather as much data and information ...
The Neolithic Period, which includes events from 12,000 years ago, is one of the most important revolutions to occur in history. The Neolithic lifestyle was established first in the Middle East, and then later in the Yellow river basin in China, which then spread over the years into the Western Hemisphere. During this time period, the domestication of plants and animals and the development of cities was starting to become more prominent and well known to many different civilizations across many different countries. It consisted of many changes in human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of farming and settlement, which supported a larger population. As civilizations expanded, so did traditions and techniques. A major technological and cultural change to modern ways of thinking and acting began in Western Europe, and from these beginning new approaches to science and law spread quickly around the world. It spread to countries, causing more people to become aware of when and where to properly irrigate a crop, which type of area had the best security, and other common living strategies. Surely enough, many years later, traditions are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Although traditions may not have changed, the way people think about their God and religions have changed from culture to culture. Throughout the years, men and women from the Middle West completely changed their relationship from nature, to a more independent lifestyle; human beings learned to have more control over their lives.
present shall soon be the past and memories too, and the future is something that will come in
The Anasazi culture came to a climax around 1350 A.D, and the four corners region was abandoned never to be reoccupied again. The Anasazi seem to have vanished without a trace, however like any great mystery there are clues that may help us understand what happened to this highly advanced society. The scope of this paper will be to discuss the arguments of Jared Diamond author of the New York Times best seller Collapse, and Michael Wilcox author of Chapter 5 in Questioning Collapse titled An indigenous Response to Jared Diamonds Archaeology of the American southw...
George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher once said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This quote is the reason why history is such an important subject for schools not only in the United States, but throughout the world. Although most students take what is in their history books as fact, the reality is that sometimes history books are not one hundred percent reliable. That is why it is so important for us to understand what happens behind the scenes of what goes into our history books. For history to be accurately retold, historians need to gather all available information possible and are counted upon to fill in the blanks of their source material.
.... The Maya may have worn down the land they used (Houston and Inomata 2009). There are, however, descendants of ancient Maya who are still occupying some areas today. Their way of life is almost the same as the ancient Maya but they lean more towards Christianity. They live in villages from two houses to 100 houses. The sites are nearly impossible to find because the Maya are dedicated to keeping it hidden (Gann and Thompson 1931). They Maya thrived for a long period of time before falling. They were strong in their religious beliefs, their love for agriculture, and their protection of territory.
The factors that lead to the “collapse” of civilizations are almost directly related to those that created it. Archaeologists characterize collapse by a number of elements, some of which we have evidence for, others we do not. Most archaeologists are unsure of exactly what caused the decline of most civilizations in the ancient world, yet there are many clues to some of the events that could have contributed. The collapse of the ancient Roman Empire, the Mesoamerican Mayan, and the Egyptian cultures will be discussed in the following paragraphs, with a focus on the uniqueness of each.
Filmmaking is an art like no other. It brings people together to create magnificent stories that people can view either on their television or on the big screen. The creators of film could not have imagined how far filmmaking would go and how much it would impact the world of entertainment. The invention of filmmaking has evolved over a long period of time and will continue to impact the world of entertainment.
The contributions of the civilizations of Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent, classical China, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire laid the foundations for living in the modern world. Breakthroughs in a multitude of fields, including art, architecture, math, science, philosophy, law, government and others are crucial to the way people live all over the world. Although these ancient civilizations may seem primitive today, they shaped the progress of the world for many centuries.