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c. 10,000 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The First Farming Settlements on the Tigris and Euphrates

Hunter-gatherers put down roots on a floodplain and started the chain of events that led to the first cities

On the timeline · around c. 10,000 BCE · Settlement to the First CitiesSettlement to the First CitiesThe First Farming Settlements on the Tigris and Euphrates10,000 BCE9,500 BCE9,000 BCE8,500 BCE8,000 BCE7,500 BCE7,000 BCE6,500 BCE6,000 BCE5,500 BCE

Quick facts

Region
Between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, modern Iraq
Earliest settlement evidence
c. 10,000 BCE
Key early crops
Wheat, barley, domesticated goats
Long-term result
Trade, then urbanization, then the first cities

What happened

Archaeological excavations beginning in the 1840s have turned up human settlement in Mesopotamia, the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq, dating back to around 10,000 BCE. The region's fertile silt and reliable water let hunter-gatherer bands settle down, domesticate animals, and shift toward farming and irrigation instead of following game and wild plants. Wheat and goats were already domesticated in the nearby Levant by about 9000 BCE, and the same package of crops and livestock spread into the Mesopotamian floodplain over the following millennia. Trade between growing villages followed, and with trade came the wealth and organization that, over thousands of years, produced the first walled towns.

Why it matters

This is the root of everything that follows on this timeline: without settled farming there is no surplus grain to store, tax, or write down, and no reason for a village to grow into a city. World History Encyclopedia calls Mesopotamia 'the beginning of beginnings' for exactly this reason, crediting the region with the first cities, the wheel, writing, and codified law, all downstream of the decision to stop moving and start planting.

How we know

The settlement dates come from stratified excavation layers across dozens of Mesopotamian sites, first surveyed in the 1840s and continuing today, cross-checked against radiocarbon-dated sites in the neighboring Levant where the same crop package appears earlier.

Sources

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