Geography 1 and World History 2 Assessment

How do people relate to their environments? People learn to use what the environment offers them. They may change that environment to meet their needs. They also learn to live with parts of the environment that they cannot control. People living in similar environments do not respond to them in the same way. A place with lots of sunshine may mean vacation to one person, and good farming to another. Human beings actively work to change their environments to make them a better place. They may want changes to provide needed goods. People may drain swamps or dig irrigation ditches to improve their lives. Sometimes the changes can cause problems, such as pollution.

South Asia—modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—is a subcontinent. It is separated from the rest of Asia by tall mountains. Just below the mountains are two large plains that hold the Ganges and Indus rivers. The high mountains gave the people safety from invaders. Because they lived close to the sea, the people could travel over the water to trade with other peoples. The people along the Indus River faced many of the same challenges that the people in Mesopotamia did. Their river flooded each year and left soil good for farming. But the floods did not occur at the same time each year. Also, the river sometimes changed course. The region’s weather caused problems, too. Each winter, strong winds blew dry air across the area. Each spring, the winds brought heavy rains. These seasonal winds are called monsoons.

Sumerian artisans relied on new technology to make their tasks easier. Around 3500 BC, they first used the potter’s wheel to shape jugs, plates, and bowls. Sumerian metalworkers discovered that melting together certain amounts of copper and tin made bronze. After 2500 BC, metal workers in Sumer’s cities turned out bronze spearheads by the thousands. The period called the Bronze Age refers to the time when people began using bronze, rather than copper and stone, to fashion tools and weapons. The Bronze Age started in Sumer around 3000 BC, but the date varied in other parts of Asia and in Europe.

Shang society was held together by a strong belief in the importance of the group, and not any single person. The most important part of society was the family. Children grew up learning to respect their parents. The family played a central role in Chinese religion, too. The Chinese thought that family members who had died could still influence the lives of family members who were alive. The Shang also asked for advice from the gods. They used oracle bones to do this. These were animal bones and shells. In the Chinese system of writing, symbols stood for ideas, not sounds. This allowed the many different groups in China to understand the same writing even though each had a special spoken language. The written language had thousands of symbols, however. Only specially trained people learned to read and write.

Another civilization arose along the banks of the Nile River of East Africa. The Nile flows to the north, toward the Mediterranean Sea. It, too, floods each year. The waters leave rich soil on the riverbanks. There, the people of ancient Egypt grew food and began to build their own culture. They worshiped the Nile as a life-giving god. For many centuries, the people of Egypt lived in two kingdoms, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt extended north from the Nile’s first area of rapids, or cataracts, to the Nile delta. The delta is a broad, marshy, triangular area of rich land. Lower Egypt began here and continued north to the Mediterranean, just 100 miles away.

The Sumerians believed in polytheism, or many gods. Each god had power over different forces of nature or parts of their lives. Sumerians believed that people were just the servants of the gods. The souls of the dead went to a joyless place under the earth’s crust. These views shaped the ideas of other people.

Society was divided into social classes. At the top were the priests and kings, after whom came wealthy merchants. Next were workers in fields and workshops. Slaves made up the lowest level. Women could enter most careers and could own property. But there were some limits on them.