What are the other civilizations that are contemporary with the Sumerian civilization?

Question

Why is that the first or the earliest civilization started in the fertile crescent (Iraq, Israel, Jordan)?Did this contribute to the invention of writings in cuneiform?

Answer 1

Several questions here...

Sumer's civilization reawakened, right around 4500 BCE, after the Great Bibical Flood in Mesopotamia, which was the appx. time the Egyptian civilization began to form.

Additionally, in the Indus River Valley (modern Pakistan), the Mohenjo-Daro & Harappan civilizations were making strides as competitive contemporaries, who traded goods with Sumer...

These were the first three literate civilizations, with written cuneiform, which is found in Mesopotamia (Iraq), being considered the oldest recorded language, followed by the Hieratic language (Hieroglyphs)...

Answer 2

Cultures

    * The Trypillian culture has cities with 15,000 citizens 5508-2750 BC.

    * Mesopotamia

          o Uruk period (protohistoric Sumer) 4100–3100 BC

          o Proto-Elamite from 3200 BC

    * Neolithic Europe and Western Eurasia

          o Crete: Rise of Minoan civilization.

          o The Yamna culture (“Kurgan culture”), succeeding the Sredny Stog culture is the locus of the Proto-Indo-Europeans according to the Kurgan hypothesis

          o The Maykop culture of the Caucasus, contemporary to the Kurgan culture, is a candidate for the origin of bronze production and thus the Bronze Age.

          o Vinca culture

    * Indian Subcontinent

          o Mehrgarh III–VI

    * Africa

          o Naqada culture on the Nile, 4000–3000 BC. First hieroglyphs appear thus far around 3500 BC as found on labels in a ruler's tomb at Abydos.

          o Nok culture, situated at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers

    * Asia

          o Neolithic Chinese settlements. They produced silk and pottery (chiefly the Yangshao and the Lungshan cultures), wore hemp clothing, and domesticated pigs and dogs.

          o Vietnamese Bronze Age culture. The Đồng Đậu Culture, 4000-2500 BC, producted many wealthy bronze objects.