Countless civilizations have risen and fallen over the millennia. But which one is the oldest on record ?

About 30 years ago, this question seemed to have a straightforward answer. Around 4000 BC, earliest phase of Sumerian culture arose as oldest civilization in Mesopotamia region, in what is now mostly Iraq. Sumerians are named after ancient city of Sumer, which was a few miles south of modern city of Kut, in eastern Iraq. Archaeologists call earliest Sumerian phase Uruk period, after equally ancient city of Uruk about 50 miles to southwest, where many of oldest Sumerian artifacts were found. But evidence uncovered in past few decades indicates that Sumerians have a few contenders, including ancient Egypt, for title of "oldest civilization."

The definition of what makes a civilization is vague, but generally a culture has to achieve several hallmarks, notably urbanism that is, cities irrigation and writing; and Sumerians had all three. After about 2000 BC, Sumerian civilization led directly to Babylonian civilization in Mesopotamia, which is credited with discovering mathematical truths such as trigonometry and prime, square and cube numbers concepts further developed by ancient Greeks more than 1000 years later.

Sumerians may have also invented religion by building towering temples called ziggurats in their cities and establishing priestly castes devoted to ritual worship of specific deities, according to American historian Samuel Noah Kramer. Which god was mightiest in vast Sumerian pantheon depended on place and time: sky god Anu, for example, was popular in early Uruk, while storm god Enlil was worshiped in Sumer. Inanna - "Queen of Heaven" may have originally been a fertility goddess in Uruk; her worship spread to other Mesopotamian cities, where she was known as Ishtar and may have influenced goddesses of later civilizations, such as Astarte among Hittites and Greek Aphrodite. 

A story very like that of Hebrew Bible's Noah, who built an ark stocked with animals to preserve his family during a great flood caused by divine wrath related in Epic of Gilgamesh. Archaeologists think it was originally a Sumerian story about 2150 BC, centuries before Hebrew version was written.

Some scholars argue that other civilizations may be as old or even older than that of Sumerians. "I would say that Egypt and Sumer were basically contemporary in their emergence," said Philip Jones, associate curator and keeper of collections at Babylonian section of Philadelphia's Penn Museum.

Decades of war and unrest in Iraq have meant that archaeologists haven't been able to access many Mesopotamian sites, but Egyptologists have kept digging. The result is that archaeologists in Egypt have now discovered writings just as early as the earliest writings from Sumer, which suggests oldest phase of ancient Egyptian civilization emerged at roughly same time as earliest phase of Sumerian civilization, about 4000 BC. 

Still another possibility is Indus Valley Civilization, which arose in parts of what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India, and dates from at least 3300 BC, according to earliest artifacts found there. But "we might find very early stuff in the Indus Valley," Jones said. "It wouldn't surprise me if we dug up something that was just as early."

Jones suspects that early trade along the edges of Indian Ocean helped these earliest civilizations, Egyptian beside Red Sea, Sumerian at north end of Persian Gulf, and Indus Valley civilization further east develop from pre-civilized people who lived there before them, by bringing them resources and ideas from further afield. "My gut feeling is that there was probably some trade networking going on the Indian Ocean," he said.

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