Eridu

Eridu is situated on the Persian Gulf coast. It is arguably the world's first city, where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.

Ubaid 1
Ubaid 1 is the Eridu phase of the Ubaid period (5400–4700 BCE). This timeframe is limited to the extreme south of Iraq, on what was then the shores of the Persian Gulf. The period shows a clear connection to the Samarra culture to the north, with the establishment of Eridu's first permanent settlement south of the 5 inch rainfall isohyet. The Eridu people pioneered the growing of grains in the extreme conditions of aridity, thanks to the high water tables of Southern Iraq.