Humanity's oldest civilization traces back to Sumer, nestled in southern Mesopotamia around 5500–1800 BCE, where the world’s first city-states emerged alongside cuneiform writing, codified laws, and early astronomy. In parallel, Ancient Egypt rose along the Nile, celebrated for monumental architecture and early writing systems.

Across in the Indus Valley today’s northwest India and Pakistan the Harappan Civilization flourished from approximately 2600–1900 BCE, pioneering urban planning, public hygiene systems, and craft technologies. 

In East Asia, the Yellow River Civilization emerged in China, giving rise to agricultural, bronze-age societies including the Shang and Zhou dynasties, with deep roots in Neolithic cultures like Yangshao and Longshan.

Meanwhile, the Caral–Supe (Norte Chico) civilization in coastal Peru, dating from 3500–1800 BCE, marks the earliest known complex society in the Americas emerging around the same time as Egypt’s pyramids and predating Mesoamerican civilizations by centuries.

These ancient societies laid the foundation for human progress creating organized governance, urban centers, symbolic systems, and rich cultural traditions that still resonate today..