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Geography and the environment affected the social, political, and/or historical development of early river valley civilizations. An example of how geography and the surrounding environment affected early civilizations is Mesopotamia (which was nicknamed the “Fertile Crescent”. Mesopotamia was the first center of urban civilization. Mesopotamia was located in the area of modern Iraq and eastern Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and had arid climates and deserts surrounding some of Mesopotamia. The first people to occupy Mesopotamia were the Sumerians. Sumerians created the Code Of Hammurabi (one of the first known set of written laws) and Cuneiform, which was their style of writing that looked like Hieroglyphics. Mesopotamia was flooded yearly at non-regular intervals, but always just once (usually between April and June) due to the melting snow on the nearby mountains. The result of the flood was silt deposited on the land that dried after the flood ended. The silt was rich in very useful minerals that were used for farming and Mesopotamia's richness always attracted its poorer neighbors, and its history is a pattern of infiltration and invasion. Rainfall is sparse in most of the region, and irrigation canals watered the fertile soil and they yielded heavy crops. In the south, date palms grow, supplying rich food, useful fiber, wood, and fodder.
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