River Valley Civilization Research Paper

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Civilization is a term anthropologists use to describe any group of people sharing a set of cultural traits such as a system of writing, cities, agriculture, metallurgy, and monumental buildings. The civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere and the civilizations of the Western Hemisphere settled in vastly contrasting contexts in different parts of the world. Because of this, their patterns of organization, technological advancement, behavior, and religion responded differently and formed at different rates. One of the many factors that caused civilizations in the Eastern Hemisphere to occur much sooner is due to its environment and body of people. That is, in river-valley civilizations such as North China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, there is a presence of large, flood-prone rivers. Since people did not get dependable rainfall, they adapted around the rivers and dug and maintained irrigation channels. Other civilizations, like Nubia, also needed a system in order to be protected from people of other civilizations who covet the resources they held.…show more content…
All early societies used religion as a way of boosting their position, however, unlike the Chinese, Celts did not build monuments. For instance, the rulers of the Shang Dynasty posed as intermediaries between their people and protective gods and ancestors. As a result, people were motivated to make things like bronze vessels and oracle bones as offering for spirits. Another example of this would be how the people of the Egyptian civilization used their understanding of geometry to build pyramid monuments and applied their knowledge of chemistry to mummify the elite in order to prepare them for the afterlife. Celtics, however, practiced a less materialistic religion that worshipped the gods and goddesses on a more personal level in a natural environment, where they felt the most level of connection to their subject of

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