Fertile Crescent

(noun)

A crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia, and the Nile Valley and Nile Delta of northeast Africa. Often called the cradle of civilization.

Related Terms

(noun)

Also known as the Cradle of Civilization, the Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of Western Asia, the Nile Valley, and the Nile Delta. 

Related Terms

Examples of Fertile Crescent in the following topics:

  • The Agricultural Market Landscape

    • This evolved in the Fertile Crescent region into the domestication of animals (i.e. cattle, sheep, goats, pigs), growing of wheat and barley in Jordan Valley and the growth of cereal in Syria (all still about 10,000 years ago).
    • This evolved further in the middle ages with the advent of fertilizers, three field techniques, draft horses, and improved international exchange.

  • River Valley Civilizations

    • The most notable examples are the Ancient Egyptians, who were based on the Nile, the Mesopotamians in the Fertile Crescent on the Tigris/Euphrates rivers, the Ancient Chinese on the Yellow River, and the Ancient India on the Indus.
    • Rivers were attractive locations for the first civilizations because they provided a steady supply of drinking water and made the land fertile for growing crops.

  • The Phoenicians

    • Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent near modern-day Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria.

  • The Rise of Egyptian Civilization

    • Around 6000 BCE, Neolithic settlements began to appear in great number in this area, likely as migrants from the Fertile Crescent returned to the area.

  • The Neolithic Revolution

    • The beginning of the Neolithic Revolution in different regions has been dated from perhaps 8,000 BCE in the Kuk Early Agricultural Site of Melanesia Kuk to 2,500 BCE in Subsaharan Africa, with some considering the developments of 9,000-7,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent to be the most important.
    • The Hilly Flanks hypothesis, proposed by Robert Braidwood in 1948, suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros mountains, where the climate was not drier, as Childe had believed, and that fertile land supported a variety of plants and animals amenable to domestication.

  • Spread of Islam

    • The objective of the conquests was of a practical nature more than anything else, as fertile land and water were scarce in the Arabian Peninsula.
    • One is animists and polytheists of tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile crescent; the other is the monotheistic populations of the Middle Eastern agrarian and urbanized societies.

  • Neolithic Art

    • Beginning around 6400 BCE, this period is characterized by the emergence of distinctive cultures throughout the Fertile Crescent, such as the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia) cultures.
    • Because of the prominence of their breasts and abdomens and subordination of their facial features, they are believed to have served as fertility figures.

  • External and Internal Fertilization

    • After the sperm reaches the egg, fertilization can then take place.
    • External fertilization in an aquatic environment protects the eggs from drying out.
    • Internal fertilization has the advantage of protecting the fertilized egg from dehydration on land.
    • Internal fertilization also enhances the fertilization of eggs by a specific male.
    • The anemone fish utilizes a form of external fertilization.

  • Fertilization

    • Fertilization occurs when a sperm and an egg have fused together to form a zygote, which begins to divide as it moves towards the uterus.
    • In medicine, this process is referred to as fertilization; in lay terms, it is more commonly known as conception.
    • After the point of fertilization the fused product of the female and male gamete is referred to as a zygote or fertilized egg.
    • The process of fertilization occurs in several steps and the interruption of any of them can lead to failure.
    • At the beginning of the process, the sperm undergoes a series of changes, as freshly ejaculated sperm is unable or poorly able to fertilize.

  • Fertility

    • There are a number of different approaches to measuring fertility rate—such as crude birth rate (CBR), general fertility rate (GFR), child-woman ratio (CWR), total fertility rate (TFR), gross reproduction rate (GRR), and net reproduction rate (NRR).
    • The TFR (or TPFR—total period fertility rate) is a better index of fertility than the crude birth rate because it is independent of the age structure of the population, but it is a poorer estimate of actual completed family size than the total cohort fertility rate.
    • Demographers study the factors that affect fertility in order to better understand fertility patterns and their variance.
    • Fertility has been found to correlate to human development index, with more developed countries having lower fertility rates than less developed ones.
    • Examine the impact of fertility rates on society and the various ways fertility is computed and discussed