Known history is synonymous with the invention of writing possible to have occurred in three places simultaneously. There may be thousands of civilisations that predate known civilisations that were limited, were not profound enough to survive time and are not remembered. Other civilizations are just as impressive such as the Meso-American civilisations even though they are not the conventional view. The maelstrom of first or last, big or small, better or worst, claims or counter-claims based on politics is not accepted, we should be free enough to enjoy history because it is interesting. Note in antiquity, transportation was not as it is today therefore space is different. Two nearby cities could be thought of as two countries, tribes being worlds apart. Disconnection and independence among tribes is easier. The past tells us that it is quite probable that everything we know today may be lost in a thousand years with little or no record. Civilization is signified by a zenith quantity of permanent dwellings.

Based around a temple complex probably more like a piazza. Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 12,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple. The pinnacle of ancient societies seems to be the temples and the preists. 40 ton megaliths, carbon-dating shows that the complex is about 12,000 years old, that means it was built around 10,000BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC. Gobekli is thus the oldest such site in the world, by a mind-numbing margin. It is so old that it predates settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything. Gobekli hails from a part of human history that is unimaginably distant, right back in our hunter-gatherer past. How did cavemen build something so ambitious?

• Gobleke Tepe from an excerpt of a history channel documentary
• Gobleke Tepe from an excerpt of a BBC documentary

Earliest historical records in the region do not go back much further than ca. 2900 BC, modern historians have asserted that Sumer was first settled between ca. 4500 and 4000 BC. Phonetically uŋ saŋ giga, literally meaning “the black-headed people”. The cities of Sumer were the first known because they invented a form of writing with abstration called cuniform which is a means to record keeping beyond mortality. First known civilization to practice intensive, year-round agriculture, by perhaps c. 5000 BC showing the use of core agricultural techniques, including large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized labour force. The surplus of storable food created by this economy allowed the population to settle in one place, instead of migrating relative to weather patterns or in search of wealth. It also allowed for a much greater population density, and in turn required an extensive labour force and division of labour. Sumer was also the site of early development of writing, progressing from a stage of proto-writing in the mid 4th millennium BC to writing proper in the third millennium (see Jemdet Nasr period). Sumer was first settled between 4500 and 4001 BC by a non-Afroasiatic people probably originating from Northern Iran and or Turkey. The Sumerians are regarded as the first civilisation. The term “Sumerian” is the common name given to the ancient non-Afroasiatic inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the Afroasiatic Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga, phonetically uŋ saŋ giga. They were superceded and eventually attacked militarily by transient Afro-asiatic tribes who settled in the lucretive area. The ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga were an agrarian society based on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga, phonetically uŋ saŋ giga, literally meaning “the black-headed people”. W. Hallo, W. Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. p. 28.

Neither Sumerian nor Egyptian are “semitic”. The black headed people the san giga who formed the constellation system saved their heads as a religious right. The latter semitic nomads that white-ant Sumeria were not bald headed. The resulting semitic language is a direct bastardization of the non-semitic languages of Sumaria and Egyptian.

The wealth of non-nomadic farming attracted many nomads including Afroasiatic speaking peoples that swamped the ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga primarily and later invaded Sumeria militarily. The Akkadian leader, Sargon, united the various city-states in Mesopotamia about 2300 B.C and created the first regarded empire in history. Under the Akkadian kings, bastardization of the orginal Sumerian language gave rise to Semitic languages as the spoken language of Mesopotamia, although it was written in cuneiform on clay tablets, the alphabet of Sumer. Akkadian is the oldest Afroasiatic language still preserved and many Middle Eastern languages stem from it the most widely-spoken Afroasiatic language today is Arabic. Subsequent tribal asiatic invasions in Babylon by the Amorites, then later the Assyrians, then later the Chaldeans.

From 3000-1500 BC. Also called the Indus Valley Civilization, they existed in what is now Pakistan and North West India, it is suggested that at the height of the civilisation their existed an urban centre consisting of a significant population with a geometrically layed out urban centre. It is now apparent that their was significant trade of goods and ideas between the Ancients of Egypt, Mesopotamia and IVC, a proto silk road. The Harrapn or the IVC may have the oldest writing ever discovered. The fragments of pottery are about 5,500 years old.

Pre or Proto Indo-European Neolithic cultures in Europe, particularly in Megalithic Temples of Malta were built during three distinct time periods between 5000BC and 700BC approximately. The Tarxien Temple in Malta Europe dating to 3500–2500 BC, religious temples described by Colin Renfrew as “the oldest free-standing monuments in the world”. The Balkan were also the site of major Neolithic cultures. Archaeologists have identified several early culture-complexes, including the Cucuteni culture (4500 to 3500 BC), Starcevo culture (6500 to 4000 BC), Vinča culture (5000 to 3000 BC), Linear pottery culture (5500 to 4500 BC), and Ezero culture (3300—2700 BC). The Eneolithic Varna culture in Bulgaria(4600-4200 BC radiocarbon dating) produced the world's earliest known gold treasure, communicated with the Mediterranean and had sophisticated beliefs about afterlife. A notable set of artifacts is the Tărtăria tablets, which appear to be inscribed with proto-writing. The Butmir Culture (2600 to 2400 BC), found on the outskirts of present-day Sarajevo, developed unique ceramics, and was likely overrun by the proto-Illyrians in the Bronze Age. The “Kurgan hypothesis” of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the “Kurgan culture”, around 5000 BC, until it encompassed the entire pontic steppe. Kurgan IV was identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC. Barnenez in France Europe dating to 4500 BC is a passage grave and the oldest megalithic monuments in Europe, perhaps the oldest monumental stone architecture in the world. Knap of Howar in Scotland, Europe dating 3700–3100 BC, oldest preserved stone house in north west Europe. Stonehenge in England dating anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC

• Ancient Europe TimeLine 8000BC-1000AD

Pre-eminent civilization, having paramount rank. Egyptian civilization began over 5,000 years ago about the time when the first Pharaoh Menes united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt the two halves of the country (around 3100 BC). Egypt has become a multi-racial culture predominantly Afroasiatic. Many Ancient Greeks found their inspiration from the Ancient Egyptians in the persuit of knowledge and grappling with ideas that the Greeks were known for. Egypt was a land of many gods, and its pharaohs were regarded as living gods. Massive concentration of power absolute enabled them to command the building of huge pyramids and temples of which Egypt is still famous. Egyption hieroglyphs is not as advanced as the more abstract cunieform of the ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga but is the zenith or rock carving and cave art. Glyths like cave painting use pictures to signify for example drawing a bird means a bird while the ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga writing the representation is not illustrated in the symbol, the abstraction may be due to clay tablet constraints, familiarity from repetition or the medium of clay. The Egyptians instead carved royal status murals on stone and later created great scrolls of papyrus. Egypt has always been an African civilization though it straddles two regions, Africa and the Middle East. It's fairly clear that the cultural roots of ancient Egypt lie in Africa and not in Asias their popularity grew so a considerable infiltration into the Nile Valley from outside populations which continues to this day. Egypt is effectively where East meets South and even West. The Egyptians were an agrarian society based on the nile river. The Egyptians were also religious opting for sun worship developing an elaborate cosmological system

The Achaemenid Persian empire was the largest that the ancient world had seen, extending from Anatolia and Egypt across western Asia to northern India and Central Asia. Its formation began in 550 B.C. The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of the greater Indo-European linguistic family. The synonymous usage of Iranian and Persian has persisted over the centuries although some modern Western sources use Iranic/Iranian as a wider term that includes the term Persian as well as related Iranian languages and ethnic groups. However, these terms have been used both synonymously as well as in a complementary fashion since ancient times; as the Ancient Iranian peoples such as the Old Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Parthians and Avesta peoples considered themselves to be part of the greater Iranian ethnic stock. The term Persian translates to “from or of Persis” which is a region north of the Persian Gulf located in Pars, Iran. It was from this region that Cyrus the Great the founder of the Achaemenid empire, united all other Iranian empires (such as the Medes and the Elamites), and expanded the Persian cultural and social influences by incorporating the Babylonian empire, and the Lydian empire. Although not the first Iranian empire, the Achaemenid empire is the first Persian empire well recognized by Greek and Persian historians for its massive cultural, military and social influences going as far as Athens, Egypt, and Libya. This is where Alexander the Great comes into the picture.

The Hellenistic Empire. The Greeks were a sophisticated people whose cultural developments are a bedrock of modern western civilisation. Alexander the Great was born in the Kingdom of Macedon, part of the Hellenic world, in 356 BC. He was the son of King Phillip II and the heir to the throne. He was given a sound education as a boy, in the physical strengths and fighting skills involved in becoming a man by his instructor, Leonidas; but perhaps infinitely more significantly, in a scholastic sense by Aristotle. The latter had himself been schooled by Plato, who had previously learned from Socrates.

Alexander's father. King Philip, was assassinated when Alexander was about twenty years old, making him King Alexander III. The full circumstances of his father's death were never established but there were even whispers that Alexander and his mother had been implicated. Regardless of this, Alexander assumed the throne and quickly crushed the rumblings of rebellion within the Kingdom. He subsequently began his expansion plans for Macedon and set about establishing his new empire, which became known as the Hellenistic Empire. Over a period of little more than a decade, he expanded his empire as far as India in the East and as far as Egypt to the West ending the Persian Empire.

Alexander the Great was not, however merely an outstanding soldier and military tactician. Courtesy of Aristotle, he had learned a great deal about philosophy and the ways to deal with or manipulate people and their opinions. He did not therefore try to assert Macedonic cultural influences upon the peoples he ruled over but rather tried to incorporate their own culture in to his own people's. He was responsible for spreading the Greek civilisation, culture and language far and wide.

The Romans conquered the entire civilised world militarily and psychologically. They stand as the bedrock of which modern society is based upon as they developed the first cities that westerners would recognize, dealing with the issues and providing services associated with mass urbanization. They represent a complex field of study that gives human civil qualities and other skills known as Greco-Roman.

The mongols are credited with the largest empire thus far, a fierce reputation for being battle hungry and at all times. Mongols rule the world, northern Europe is mongolian, Russia is mongolian, and the middle east is mongolian. In all these places exist alien attitudes to the native culture and a generally lack of acceptance of native culture because it stems from immersed mongolians. Gengish sends his emissary to the nearby Moslem caliph governor, seeing the carriage laced the gold the caliph could not have helped himself, he stole the carriage and send the emissionary back to Genghis beaten and bruised, big mistake. On word the Genghis was coming, he high-tailed it out of there and left his city at the hands of Genghis. Not withstanding the caliph could not run far enough as Genghis pretty much conquered everything in his path. Today the immersed mongoloids dominate.