This is an 8th grade informational text about the first civilizations in Mesopotamia. It is a historical region of Western Asia, now considered to be part of the Middle East. Students should cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says. Students should also determine a central idea of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas. In addition, they should provide an objective summary of the text, and analyze how the text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (License: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License).