What Is The Oldest Civilization On Earth?

The earliest known civilizations arose in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq, Persia in modern day Iran, the Nile valley of Egypt, the Indus Valley region of modern-day Pakistan and North India, and the parallel development of Chinese civilizations in the Huang He and Yangtze River valleys of China.

Smaller civilizations arose in Elam in modern-day Iran, and on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea, as well as the Olmec civilization and the Caral civilization in modern-day Mexico and Peru.

The Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer is officially is believed to have begun around 4000-3500 BC. It ended at 2334 BC with the rise of Akkad, and is the world's first civilization.

The Egyptian civilization of the Nile Valley started at around 3200 BC. It ended at around 343 BC, at the start of the Achaemenid dynasty's control of Egypt. This is one of the three oldest civilizations in the world.

What about the sumerian race, they were far more advanced in mathematics and astrology, not to mention art. They were around before all those other civilizations came to be, I wonder why that's not taught as an important part of history... They wrote something called the 7 tablets of creation which is like genesis in the bible but, a far more elongated story. They also wrote something in the flood tablet that was basically a reflection or a very similar story to noah's arc... You can find the info if you see the discoveries of a well known anthropologist by the name of "zecharia sitchen" he dedicated his whole life to translating the sumerian written language...

It is unscientific to search the oldest civilization using the available contemporary information , because the evidences of the oldest civilization would have either disappeared or deeply buried. There could have been more civilized worlds in the past and could have disappeared in the time run. Most of the western anthropologists disagree with the concept of Dravidian civilization as the oldest simply because they lack scientific evidence.

.......it's better to be uneducated rather than be half educated.

Noways, we full of half educated entities.

In that case, when you meshing with half blind people, it's better to hide one of of your eyes when you are among them.

Nobody really knows for sure. Everyday conflicting reports are being heard.  At the end of the day, what difference would it make?  We need to be cultured as well.

Hello!!!!....the very first kings of egypt(about 8000bc) ruled THOUSANDS of years before the first pyramid was even thought about(3200bc)...not to mention it was ancient NUBIA that ruled as the first kings of egypt for thousands of years before the lighter skinned northern africans took control of egypt...Greece wasn't even heard of until the 1000's bc!!!!!
Africa is mother to the entire earth, all land masses as well as people sprouted from mother africa...

By now the thread has become useless, jingoistic and abusive. But fear not. If you want, any civilization is older than any other one. All civilizations are the oldest in the world. You know the old story...mine is bigger than yours. Similarly my civilization is older than yours.

Well I can see that this is no longer about the oldest civilization and more about Greek pride: Just calling it as I see it, so I suggest to do the unthinkable and read real accredited literature about ancient culture.

Assyrian empire was one of the first civilizations on earth but of course most of History has tried to eliminate the Assyrians from the books. Abraham came from the land between the two rivers which is Mesopotamia which is Assyria. Assyrians invented things and ideas before the Greeks did, and they only get the credit becasue it was THEM who wrote history.

The oldest known civilization is that of ancient Sumer. Sumerians developed a thriving agricultural society by the 6th millennium BECE, complete with great stone buildings and even some conveniences that we consider 'modern'. Theirs predates any other civilization by at least a few hundred years. Lemuria is considered fictional.
 
**If literature is the mark of civilization, then the Aztec civilization must not have existed, as they never kept a written record of anything. They didn't even bother to develop any sort of writing system. My point is that the only 'mark of civilization' is a system of permanent dwellings, accompanied by a fairly complex agricultural <and/or> pastoralism society. **

You are all completely forgetting an even older confirmed civilization. The Chinese civilization spans over 7,000 years. Even the cultures that developed in the Middle East are younger by about 1,000 years. While humans developed into societies in the Mid East and sub-Saharan Africa, the cultural region of what we call 'China' is older.

Much conjecture is prevalent in the rationalizations presented thus far. I observe that many responses simply deal with recounting or regurgitating the dating of the artifacts about civilisations and not the significance of those artifacts. As 'time' detectives we must look at macro and micro evidence then connect the dots to the relevance of the totality of human existence vice some scatter-plot theories that fail to acknowledge the genisis of it all nor to speak logically to the reason for pyramids.

I will stipulate this is a good answer for this question; however, I hope the reader does not miss the most important point of all:
(a) A bit of the human world is mentioned;
(b) Most of the human world is not mention, including India and there is reason to believe that India is as old as human civilizations became;
(c) But, who knows; we certainly don't but creating an answer to your question took thousands of people numerous centuries being preoccupied with founding & establishing this knowledge.

Life is forever going , where I don't know. We have been here in this cycle for almost 36,000 years. Now it's time for this cycle to end and another to begin. All history will be wiped out and life will start over with a fresh new start. Our consciousness will be erased and a new spirit will take over giving all living things a new consciousness. This isn't the first 36,000 year cycle and it's not the last. Hope to see you all in the fourth dimension.