WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Greek city-states likely developed because of the physical geography of the Mediterranean region. The landscape features rocky, mountainous land and many islands. These physical barriers caused population centers to be relatively isolated from each other. The sea was often the easiest way to move from place to place.

Detailed explanation-2: -Wheat and barley were grown, and olives and grapes were harvested. The many hills and mountains provided shrubs to feed the herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. Because farming didn’t produce huge surpluses, and travel across the terrain was difficult, the Greeks came to depend on the sea.

Detailed explanation-3: -Greek civilization developed into independent city-states because Greece’s mountains, islands, and peninsulas separated the Greek people from each other and made communication difficult. The steep mountains of the Greek geography also affected the crops and animals that farmers raised in the region.

Detailed explanation-4: -From early times the Greeks lived in independent communities isolated from one another by the landscape. Later these communities were organized into poleis or city-states. The mountains prevented large-scale farming and impelled the Greeks to look beyond their borders to new lands where fertile soil was more abundant.

Detailed explanation-5: -From both a religious and a military point of view, a hilltop site was highly desirable: militarily, because an acropolis had to be a citadel; religiously, because a hill was imbued with natural mysteries-caves, springs, copses, and glens-that denoted the presence of the gods.