Geography played a major role in the development of the early societies in our history. Geography was one of the most important things in ancient times because it provided the people with guidance. Essentially, people had to build their life based on their surrounds because they needed to use their resources to survive. Not only that the geography provided some civilizations with guidance in terms of religion and protection from other civilizations. Every place is different so you within in this paper you will see how the geography has shaped each of these ancient societies in different ways.
Egypt was one of the first civilizations alongside Mesopotamia. The Nile River was the single most important and essential thing to life in Egypt. Life
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It was also a good place for farmers to grow crops which they could trade for money or other supplies they would need. Conquering India provide all, but a few with problems due to the surroundings. The Himalayans provided them with protect from invaders in the north while the Bay of Bengal & Arabian Sea assisted in the south. The Ganges River provided them with water for humans, animals, and irrigation of crops. The Burmese forest was also another good piece of protection because it was impossible to travel through with the tools they had at that. The Khyber Pass is probably the most important geological feature of India. This path has a long history of violence and invasion it was also an important trade route. Armies often the Khyber as an entry point for their invasions because it was one of the few entrances into the civilization. Alexander the Great used this path in order to invade India in 326 B.C.E …show more content…
These places built their life around these areas in order to help their society survive. Without the vast amount of rivers and mountains these civilizations would not have survived. Protection, Food, Water, and Trade are just some of the things that were provided because of the geography of the areas. Some of these places were seen as religion guidance which formed some of the religions that we have today. Societies wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for these features. There’s no telling where our world would be if they weren’t provided with these
Blij has clearly put this book into historical significance by mentioning the idea of geography and how it plays a role in societies all over the world. However, the five themes of culture regions, cultural diffusion, cultural interaction, cultural ecology, and cultural landscapes are all clearly defined within a specific context to a particular nation. Through reading this intriguing piece of literature I received the underlying notion that Blij firmly believes that landscapes of the world realm are not going to change. De Blij worldview of regions, diffusion, interaction, ecology, and landscapes has allowed him to simultaneously link issues together from the United States all the way to Southeast Asia.
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.
Geography plays an important role in the development of a civilization. The impact of geography can either make or break a civilization. Early civilizations inhabited features such as river valleys, deserts, rainforests, plateaus and other geographical structures. One important geographically defining structure are river valleys . River valleys had a significant impact on one particular civilization, Mesopotamia.
The Nile and Indus River Valley civilizations were both unique civilizations in their own way in comparison. Yet despite being separated by thousands of miles there are similarities in these two ancient civilizations. It is seen that amongst ancient civilizations, rivers are fundamental for them to prosper and provide for a relatively stable society for which a people can grow and develop. There are general similarities with pinpoint differences as well as general differences with pinpoint similarities. Both civilizations have left their influence on human civilization and history, with their unique characteristics of their religion, way of life, social classes, cultures, technological advancements, government systems, rulers and notable
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.
Geography is destiny in the founding of Rome. Italy is a peninsula that is surrounded by three important bodies of water. To the
Ancient Egypt is considered to be one of the most significant eras in history, due to its lengthy existence and its overwhelming contributions to the development of western civilization. You could say that Egypt provided the building blocks for Greek and Roman culture, and through them, influenced all of Western tradition. Today Egyptian imagery, concepts, and perspectives are found everywhere; you will find them in architectural forms, on money, and in our day to day lives. We are able to distinguish various elements of its culture that played a key role in its development, such as agriculture, architecture, religion, and government to name a few. Egypt 's impact on later cultures was and still is immense.
Ancient Egypt was a very important time in our time period. They had their own way of life. Egyptians had their own writing, burials, government, religion, cooking, and games. They were educated people with many talents. They were good with their hands and brains. Ancient Egyptians were a magnificent race of people.
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.
Geographical concepts have been traced back to ancient days, geography is defining as the scientific study of the location of people and activity across earth and reasons for their distribution. It asks where and why things are where they are. Geographers organizes materials by the places they are located, thus being they have concluded that what happens in one place affects what happens in another place and can further affect conditions in the near future. Like any other subject geography has its own language and knowledge for better understanding of its concepts. Thinking geographically means learning the language, we need both geographical vocabulary and grammar in order to do this. Geography has concepts that enables us to have geographical
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.
Throughout history, the way civilizations have changed over time have varied greatly, in the specific environment civilizations where located. Civilizations can be located near rivers, trough arid land, and with predictable or unpredictable climate. With the environment being anything form the surrounding vegetation, to neighboring villages that may pose a potential threat. Civilizations need to establish themselves within the environment has led many to warfare and others to collapse. The specific environment civilizations lived in can be either an advantage or disadvantage. Changing the way the political and economic structure of the people’s specific civilization varied greatly on the resources that was
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
...el. This caused the building of boats from resources found along the rivers edge. This made travel easier for the Egyptians and opened up more trade with other civilizations. From all these gifts, the ancient Egyptians created a god for the river. So not only did the Nile River provide the resources to sustain life but it also provided a religious belief system. This gave the Egyptians something to believe in and work towards in their life. The Nile River is the reason ancient Egyptians survived. It provided everything for the families within the community. The river is the only way large civilizations could survive the dry desert climate. Without the Nile, Egypt would be a barren desert with little civilization. There development of Egypt would have been much smaller if the Nile did not exist. This shows just how significant the Nile River was to ancient Egyptians.
For this reason alone, geography is “one of the world’s oldest disciplines, but for many people today, one of the least understood” (Sharma and Elbow, 2000, p. 4). The first people to accurately record their thoughts and surroundings of the world around them on paper were the Greeks, led by Herodotus and his theory of how our environment can influence humans, our culture, and our way of life. His theory might have been outdated, but it definitely paved towards one of geography’s most significant research question. As time progressed so did man’s interest in studying the world around them; from the days of the Roman Empire, Strabo and Ptolemy, were considered ahead of their time, they wrote two famous pieces called Geography and Guide to Geography. They attempted to explain both the “physical and human phenomena of their world” (Sharma and Elbow, 2000, p. 4). After their work was ransacked from the library of Alexandria in 391 A.D., both pieces of work had vanished. It had resurfaced in Europe during the Age of Discovery, where one of the most famous explorers at that time, Christopher Columbus, had read both pieces and became interested in exploration, in which he founded the new world on his quest to find another trade route, other than by land, from Spain to India and Asia. Thus, by extension “in that era, geography was precisely defined and there was an overwhelming consensus about its nature and relationship with other enquiries” (Mayhew, 2001, pg.