Name: ___________________________________
History: Chapter 2 DBQ
Date:___________________
Period: _________________
Document Based Question – Farming and the Emergence of Complex
Societies
Directions: Answer the questions using evidence from the documents provided.
Tips about answering Document Based Questions:
 Be sure to use complete sentences
 Restate the question when answering (complete answers are complete
thoughts!)
 Consider the source (ask yourself who supplied the information and when)
 Examine the supplemental information as well as the document when
planning your response
Historical Context
As hunters and gatherers faced growing populations of people, animal extinctions, and
droughts, they needed to adapt in order to survive. In southwestern Asia, gatherers tried
planting the seeds of wild grasses, and they became the world’s first farmers. The
following documents look at the river valley civilizations and the ways that they made the
most out of farming. The documents also show the progression of farming, and how it
provided new opportunities as people moved away from hunting and gathering, and
towards an agricultural revolution. Answer the questions that follow each document to
help you form an idea to the essential question:
How did technological advances in agriculture allow early civilizations to develop and
sustain themselves over long periods of time?
Part A – Carefully read/examine each document and respond to the questions that follow. Remember to
reference the documents when answering the questions, and use complete sentences.
Document 1- Sumerian Harvester’s Sickle, c. 3000 BCE
Image courtesy of the Field Museum: Chicago, Illinois
1. What job was this ancient implement designed to accomplish?
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2. Predict two advantages and two disadvantages farmers faced when using stone implements?
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Document 2- Early Centers of Agricultural Activity
Image courtesy of Purdue University: West Lafayette, Indiana
3. What are the common characteristics of early agricultural civilizations in the Eastern Hemisphere?
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4. How do the geographic characteristics of agricultural societies in the Western Hemisphere differ from
those in the Eastern Hemisphere?
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5. How might we be able to predict the strength of a society based upon its geographic characteristics and
closeness to agriculture?
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Document 3- An account of early Sumerian Agriculture
"The raw materials of the Sumerian diet were barley, wheat, and millet; chick peas, lentils, and beans;
onions, garlic, and leeks; cucumbers, cress, mustard, and fresh green lettuce. Everyday meals probably
consisted of barley paste or barley cake, accompanied by onions or a handful of beans and washed down
with barley ale. The fish that swarmed in the rivers of Mesopotamia were also a luxury. Meat was more
common in the cities than in the less populated countryside, since it spoiled so quickly in the heat, but beef
and veal were popular with people who could afford them. Beef was, however, more likely to have been
tough and stringy, and cattle were not usually slaughtered until the end of their working lives. Probably
more tender and certainly more common was mutton, which is the flesh of sheep that is used for food. The
settlers who had first put the Sumerian state on its feet were originally sheep herders."
Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers:New York] 1988 (p. 47)
6. Explain how Sumerians chose what crops to domesticate. When did they eat certain foods, and what
circumstances led them to chose these foods?
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Document 4 - Food Preservation in Ancient Egypt
"There is evidence that as early as 12,000 B.C., Egyptian tribes people on the lower Nile dried fish and
poultry using the hot desert sun. Areas with similar hot and dry climates found drying to be an effective
method of preservation...Herodotus, writing in the fifth century B.C., describes how the Egyptians and their
neighbors still dried fish in the sun and wind and then stored them for long periods."
Pickled, Potted and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Processing
Changed the World, Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000 (p. 31)
7. Compare Document 3 and Document 4. What problem of early Mesopotamian agriculture were
Egyptians able to avoid? How did they solve this problem in Egypt?
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8. Egypt is located in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Beyond fishing, how do you think the Nile River
may have provided for the support of the Egyptian population?
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Document 5 – Geography and Power
Farming lets you feed far more people than hunting and gathering. In a one-acre wheat field, there's more to
eat than in a one-acre forest. In a one-acre sheep pasture, there are more animals to eat than in a one-acre
forest. Also, farming lets you settle down in villages next to your wheat fields and pastures, while huntergatherers have to move around.
Interview: Jared Diamond talks about Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of
Human Societies, Jared Diamond, et al {National Geographic} August 1998.
9. How did the settled agriculture actually increase the amount of food available to a population?
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10. How did agriculture allow for the transition from nomadic to permanent settlements?
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Document 6 - Why We Choose
Settled farming civilizations first appeared in river valleys, but were quickly overtaken by mid – latitude
civilizations. Various authors have found, that even today, it is far more likely for countries located in
humid continental climates to have sustainable agriculture than other areas of the world, including many of
the original sites of human cultivation. Furthermore, forensic botanists have found that both in ancient and
modern agriculture, high yield grains were selected because of the characteristics that allowed them to
survive in a given climate, and their ability to feed an ever growing population.
Excerpted from Origins of Agriculture, University of California Los Angeles, 9 September 2010.
11. Why do you think early agriculture first appeared in river valleys?
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12. Why do you think there was a transition in agricultural regions from river valleys to humid continental,
mid - latitude areas?
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Part B – Summary Question
13. Use the documents to answer the following question. Use at least 3 examples from the documents to
support your answer, and reference which documents you obtained the information from.
How did technological advances in agriculture allow early civilizations to develop and sustain
themselves over long periods of time?
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