World History EncyclopediaJan 28
The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization flourished between circa 4000 and 1750 BCE. #History #Ziggurat #Uruk #Sumerians #Sumer #Mesopotamia #Hammurabi #Gutians #FertileCrescent #Archaeology #Amorite #Akkad #AkkadianMythology #Elamites #SumerianReligion #Trade #Ubaid #UrukPeriod #HistoryFact https://whe.to/ci/1-428-en/
Sumerians: Inventors of Civilization

The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization flourished between circa 4000 and 1750 BCE. Their name comes from the region, which is frequently...

World History Encyclopedia
PugJesusJan 25

Civilization begins with fertility (Centurii-Chan)

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1700252/civilization-begins-with-fertility-centurii-chan

Anthropology.netDec 3
A 10,000-year Kurdish stalagmite reveals how climate instability shaped early communities in the eastern Fertile Crescent and influenced the rise of farming. New evidence suggests resilience, not stability, guided the path to agriculture. #Archaeology #ClimateHistory #Neolithic #FertileCrescent https://www.anthropology.net/p/stone-water-and-time-how-a-kurdish
Stone, Water, and Time: How a Kurdish Stalagmite Rewrites the Climate Story of Early Farming

A new cave record suggests that the road to agriculture in the eastern Fertile Crescent was forged through hardship, flexibility, and millennia of environmental instability.

Anthropology.net
Archaeology News Sep 12, 2025

Farming spread through migration, not local adoption, ancient DNA reveals

Around 10,000 years ago, human groups experienced one of the most important changes in the history of humanity: the shift from gathering and hunting to farming. The transition, typically known as the Neolithic Revolution, began in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East and later spread to Europe...

More info: https://archaeologymag.com/2025/08/farming-spread-through-migration/

Follow @archaeology

#archaeology #archeology #neolithic #FertileCrescent

Ancient OriginsJun 24, 2025
AO THROWBACK - The Fertile Crescent is the name given to the arc-shaped area of land that stretched across the Middle East from the northern end of the Gulf in the East to the Nile Valley in the West. https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/fertile-crescent-0010488
#AncientOrigins #ancient #history #historyfacts #historylovers #historymatters #ancienthistory #archaeology #mythology #FertileCrescent #MiddleEast #AncientHistory
💧🌏 Greg CocksDec 29, 2023
A Wall Or A Road? A Remote Sensing-Based Investigation Of Fortifications On Rome's Eastern Frontier [using Cold War imagery]
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https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.153 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #remotesensing #imagery #satellite #ColdWar #MiddleEast #roman #romanhistory #ancienthistory #CORONA #HEXAGON #declassified #U2 #geoint #militaryhistory #militaryintelligence #forts #romanempire #romanforts #romanarmy #easternfrontier #survey #USGS #NASA #spysatellite #FertileCrescent #defensive #syria #steepe #desert #archaeology
@USGS
A wall or a road? A remote sensing-based investigation of fortifications on Rome's eastern frontier | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

A wall or a road? A remote sensing-based investigation of fortifications on Rome's eastern frontier - Volume 97 Issue 396

Cambridge Core
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋Oct 26, 2023

"Here we employ a sample of ancient Near Eastern cities dated between about 6000 BC and AD 1000 using settled area as a proxy for city population and relate this to estimates of regional population and prevailing climate to examine their long-term relationship."

Lawrence D, Philip G, Hunt H, Snape-Kennedy L, Wilkinson TJ (2016) Long Term Population, City Size and Climate Trends in the Fertile Crescent: A First Approximation. PLOS ONE 11(3): e0152563. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152563 #OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Archaeology #Ancient #FertileCrescent #NearEast #Turkey #Population #Climate #Academia #Academic #Academics @archaeodons

Long Term Population, City Size and Climate Trends in the Fertile Crescent: A First Approximation

Over the last 8000 years the Fertile Crescent of the Near East has seen the emergence of urban agglomerations, small scale polities and large territorial empires, all of which had profound effects on settlement patterns. Computational approaches, including the use of remote sensing data, allow us to analyse these changes at unprecedented geographical and temporal scales. Here we employ these techniques to examine and compare long term trends in urbanisation, population and climate records. Maximum city size is used as a proxy for the intensity of urbanisation, whilst population trends are modelled from settlement densities in nine archaeological surveys conducted over the last 30 years across the region. These two measures are then compared with atmospheric moisture levels derived from multiple proxy analyses from two locations close to the study area, Soreq Cave in Israel and Lake Van in south-eastern Turkey, as well as wider literature. The earliest urban sites emerged during a period of relatively high atmospheric moisture levels and conform to a series of size thresholds. However, after the Early Bronze Age maximum urban size and population levels increase rapidly whilst atmospheric moisture declines. We argue that although the initial phase of urbanization may have been linked to climate conditions, we can see a definitive decoupling of climate and settlement patterns after 2000 BC. We relate this phenomenon to changes in socio-economic organisation and integration in large territorial empires. The complex relationships sustaining urban growth during this later period resulted in an increase in system fragility and ultimately impacted on the sustainability of cities in the long term.

Matt WillemsenJul 31, 2023
New language database narrows search for first speakers of Indo-European
The study proposes a compromise solution to long-standing debate over origins of this incredibly widespread language family
Before 8000 years ago, Fertile Crescent farmers spoke and began to spread Indo-European variants, which nomadic herders picked up and carried across the northern steppe roughly 2000 years later.
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-language-database-narrows-search-first-speakers-indo-european #IndoEuropean #language #database #FertileCrescent
katch wreckFeb 27, 2023

"Officials who question why contract prices are inflated receive warnings, including one who objected to a power plant in northern Salahaddin province that was overvalued by $600 million. He got a call when it became clear he would not sign off on the deal, he said.

Be careful, he was told."
https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-elections-iraq-baghdad-177d3284c87d892ac4f9f56140f13331#:~:text=Officials%20who%20question,he%20was%20told.

#middleEast #energyEconomy #kickbacks #shadyDeals #iraqWar #saddamHussein #fertileCrescent #stability #prosperity #corruption #extortion #embezzlement #offTheBooks #accountability

Shadow contracts, corruption keep the lights out in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — In the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, glossy election campaign posters are plastered alongside jungles of sagging electrical wires lining the alleyway to Abu Ammar’s home. But his mind is far from Iraq’s Oct.

Associated Press
Jens NotroffDec 7, 2022

#CatContent! 😺

Once we went full-farming, rodent-catching felines became our welcome furry friends (or we their service staff).

"Feline #genetics pinpoint first-ever #domestication of #cats" c. 10,000 years ago in the #FertileCrescent:

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-feline-genetics-first-ever-domestication-cats.html via @[email protected]

Feline genetics help pinpoint first-ever domestication of cats

Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers. They developed close bonds with the rodent-eating cats that conveniently served as ancient pest-control in society's first civilizations.

Phys.org