Agricultural Sedentism and Culture in Mesopotamia (Essay Sample)

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Agricultural Sedentism and Culture in Mesopotamia
In 9500 B.C, the environment drastically changed. The globe started to emerge from Ice Age. Besides, grassland started to spread across parts of the Middle East. Human beings started to make grass pathways to mature, attracting animals from the thick forest and bushes. Still, human beings started creating settling places in the woodlands. Due to the existence of two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, Agriculture was adopted as they dropped hunting and gathering for their daily lives. Agricultural Sedentism marked the Paleolithic-Neolithic age in Mesopotamia. The agricultural revolution and cultural changes were established in the Paleolithic-Neolithic period in Mesopotamia. 
During the Paleolithic-Neolithic period, agriculture demonstrated a magical encounter for human beings. They grew the sense of cause and impact, and they would precisely obey the laws of nature. Without agriculture, human beings would have no idea about the existence of nature as a concept (The Neolithic, pg. 37). They would instead think that they controlled and monitored what was chaotic and wild. Therefore, agriculture acted as a decision-making tool and a magical tool for the people of the new Stone Age period. The introduction of agriculture differentiated the people of the old stone-age period from the people of the new Stone Age period, where several innovations and creativity were established in Mesopotamia. 
The cycle of agricultural seasons and the introduction of the farming calendar altered agrarian practices. The agrarian cycle monitoring and control allowed effective prediction of the weather patterns. Human beings were able to distinguish between the dry seasons and the rainy seasons besides the presence of rivers surrounding the country (The Neolithic, pg.50). Still, they performed rituals that helped them secure the favor from their spirits and gods, who they believed influenced the natural occurrences and surrounded them. They respected the significance of fertility and made a religion in honor of the fertility gods. 
During the Paleolithic-Neolithic period, human beings developed a sense of ownership and territoriality. They felt that there was a need for personal protection, and they should protect and defend what belonged to them against others (Shea, pg.220). This was due to the many belongings, and they realized that they could not carry them on their back as they always did. Besides, human beings realized that they lived on the land where they were required to sweat to make something out of it. Therefore, they developed the need for property ownership and the need for limiting territories between them. 
Spending most of their time along riverbanks, they made houses from