Katie Taylor, Period 6 September 25, 2013
Thoughts and Reflections on: The Cadilac Desert
by: Mark Reisney
Every civilization has obstacles it must either over come or be destroyed by. Mesopotamia was in the fertile crescent meaning it was an oasis in the desert, but despite its locations there was still less than desired rain fall per year.
They able to over come this obstacle by constructing aqueducts and canals to help with irrigation. Once they had ways to store water they were able to grow more crops. One of Mesopotamia's other main obstacle was lack of metals, but this civilization over came this by trading. Due to irrigation it produced more than enough food for it self, so it had plenty to trade. It had such an abundance of food they were able to trade great quantities of it for valuable metals. Mesopotamia also had the problem of having there water have such a high salinity, but this did not limit the people.To get around the effects of the water's high salinity they grew more barley instead of relying on wheat, because barley was a more salt-tolerant crop. Barley was not effected by the salinity of the water, so it grew well and the salinity of the water was no longer as big of a limitation. As you can see Mesopotamia's environment presented many obstacles, but it was able to get around those environmental limitations and was a great civilization of the ancient times.
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