Question

Why do you think ancient civilizations developed around river basins?

Answer 1

River valleys not only have water, they also often have a broad, flat floodplain that is readily adapted to agriculture. Even the earliest, least sophisticated agricultural techniques would have been effective in yielding a significant bounty of crops from the naturally-irrigated and fertile soil of a river valley.

All the river valleys were civilizations have originated — Mesopotamia (the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates), the Nile, the Indus, the Yellow River, the Rio Balsas — have been geographically located in tropical or sub-tropical latitudes. Thus there was not only plenty of water from these rivers, but also plenty of sunshine. Often the land beyond these river valleys was utterly barren, as in Egypt with the Nile Valley: beyond the immediate flood plain of the Nile, the hills are barren and no agriculture is possible at all.

The Nile had the most dependable annual flooding, so that early agriculture was able to produce multiple crops per year without irrigation, as the irrigation took place naturally because of the annual flooding of the Nile. The Indus and the Yellow river also flooded regularly, but were not as predictable as the Nile.

The plentiful sun and plentiful river water meant that multiple crops could be raised each year, and the food surplus made possible by river valley agriculture meant that these societies could support growing populations, and that not everyone was forced to farm in order for there to be sufficient food for all. Individuals could specialize in crafts like building, pottery, metallurgy, and eventually even tasks like writing (record keeping), and government, thus allowing civilizations to be born.

As farming techniques were gradually improved over thousands of years, and inventions like the plow and irrigation were made, human communities moved beyond these river valleys and established what is known as the “First Temperate Neolithic,” that is say, farming communities made possible by more advanced farming techniques that could be adapted to geographical regions others than fertile river valleys in tropical and sub-tropical regions.