Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering

Man’s First Strides (The Prehistoric Era)

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• Abstract 

  The first steps taken by Man in the long journey towards the establishment of the first known settled society. From the end of the last ice age to this, point which had taken 12000 years. The book explains the changes in climate, which made the first appearance of agriculture and the domestication of animals possible after many thousands of years of food collection and hunting for food. The first attempts to build settled communities are explained, which finally were calumniated in the establishment of stable settlements at the south of modern-day Iraq, where irrigated agriculture was practiced for the first time in history on the edges of its southern marshes. The people known as the Ubaid who were attracted to this place by the temperate climate and the rich resources of the land found such settlement as Ur, Eridu and Uruk. These people, explains the book, practiced irrigated agriculture and pottery and it was from archaeological findings of such pottery and the symbols engraved on them that their history became known to us. However, not having any form of writing, explains the book, the reason why historians had placed al- Ubaid people in the prehistory period, as they have not passed to us any documented written history. The beginning of history as defined by historians and ascertained by the author begins only with the invention of writing which was accomplished by the next People to live in this area who were the Sumerians.

  Keywords: Ubaid, Ur, Eridu; Uruk, Iraq.