The Fall of Rome led directly to the political and social fragmentation of much of Europe. Western Europe, and the Mediterranean area in particular, had been unified under the Roman Empire for several centuries. Once the Empire fell to barbarian invasion, the economic, social, and political life of Europe changed dramatically with small pockets of warring tribes appearing everywhere. It would be several centuries before Europe would be as comparably “developed” again.

All of the answers are correct-all of these factors contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, although the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) survived into the fifteenth century.

The Gothic victory against the Romans at Adrianople in 378 signaled the permanent decline of Roman power, opening the empire to new waves of foreign invasions that it eventually succumbed to. Both the battles of Carrhae and Cannae were defeats much earlier in Roman history when Rome was still rising in power, and did not directly lead to Rome's permanent decline. The Visigoths' sack of Rome and the battle of Chalons were both events of the fifth century, once Rome's permanent decline were well underway, and the battle of Chalons was in fact not a Roman defeat.

Hadrian's Wall was built by the Emperor Hadrian in 122 CE to protect the Roman English territory from the raiding parties of the Celtic barbarians to the North in modern-day Scotland. 

The Minoans lived on the island of Crete and were established traders and colonizers. The height of their civilization was between 3,000 and 2,000 BCE. They are thought to have settled in Greece and contributed to the rise of Greek culture. The Mycenaeans were people who lived in Greece from about 1,500 BCE to 1,000 BCE. They laid the foundations of the ancient Greek language and it is their culture that is described in Homer's Iliad.

Alaric the Visigoth was the leader of the Germanic "barbarian" people called the Visigoths. He is most famous for sacking Rome in 410 CE. This was a very crucial event in the fall of Rome. It was the first time the city had been sacked since Rome had become an empire, and it would be sacked twice more in the next century by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths.

The Carthaginian Empire arose in the 8th century B.C.E. when the Phoencian Queen Dido led a group of her people to North Africa to found a new settlement. The settlement quickly grew, absorbing Berber people along the way, and became the civilization of Carthage. Hannibal was the Carthaginian general who led an army of elephants over the Alps to attack the Roman Empire and defeated them on the battlefield. Famously he balked at sacking the city of Rome and allowed the Romans to recover, a decision that would eventually lead to his personal downfall and the downfall of his civilization. 

Early farming communities characterized the Fertile Crescent. Some of the first irrigation systems were developed in this area, which led to an increase in food supply and, in turn, population. The Fertile Crescent was located in Mesopotamia (which is in the Middle East), not Mesoamerica or along the Yellow River. Finally, the Fertile Crescent area, which came to be known as Sumer, was governed by hereditary kings rather than democratically elected officials.

The Fertile Crescent is an area of land in the Middle East and Asia Minor. Due to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers it is extremely fertile and arable. It is where many of the earliest civilizations settled down and began farming and grew powerful. All of these empires, as well as the Phonecians, the Hittites, the Israelites, the Persians and several others arose in the Fertile Crescent. 

"The Fertile Crescent," often also called "Mesopotamia," is a region of the Middle East and Asia Minor that is (compared to the dry, arid land around it) extremely fertile and favorable to agriculture. It is the part of the world where many of the oldest civilizations arose and remains relevant today. Modern nations that have at least some territory in the Fertile Crescent are Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Palestine, and Iraq. The climate and terrain of Afghanistan is very different; it is mountainous and drier.