ancient history

Uruk was one of the most important cities (at one time, the most important) in ancient Mesopotamia. According to the Sumerian King List, it was founded by King Enmerkar c. 4500 BCE. Uruk is best known as the birthplace of writing c. 3200 BCE as well as for its architecture and other cultural innovations.

Located in the southern region of Sumer (modern day Warka, Iraq), Uruk was known in the Aramaic language as Erech which, it is believed, gave rise to the modern name for the country of Iraq, though another likely derivation is Al-Iraq, the Arabic name for the region of Babylonia. The city of Uruk is most famous for its great king Gilgamesh and the epic tale of his quest for immortality but also for a number of firsts in the development of civilization which occurred there.

It is considered the first true city in the world, the origin of writing, the first example of architectural work in stone and the building of great stone structures, the origin of the ziggurat, and the first city to develop the cylinder seal which the ancient Mesopotamians used to designate personal property or as a signature on documents. Considering the importance the cylinder seal had for the people of the time, and that it stood for one's personal identity and reputation, Uruk could also be credited as the city which first recognized the importance of the individual in the collective community.

...

The Uruk Period

The Ubaid Period (c. 5000-4100 BCE) when the so-called Ubaid people first inhabited the region of Sumer is followed by the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE) during which time cities began to develop across Mesopotamia and Uruk became the most influential. The Uruk Period is divided into 8 phases from the oldest, through its prominence, and into its decline based upon the levels of the ruins excavated and the history which the artifacts found there reveal. The city was most influential between 4100-c.3000 BCE when Uruk was the largest urban center and the hub of trade and administration.

WorldHistory.org has such a cool website, for anyone that hasn't been there before. The timelines they show on the side are pretty great too, since you can just keep clicking and following them down whatever rabbit hole you find interesting. All of the above is copy/pasted from the linked article, it's definitely worth perusing if you ask me.

Found this today and it seemed fun to share. There are other versions that don't show the ocean completely encircling the lands of the Earth, like this one for example, but seeing maps like the one shown here where the ocean encircles all the land really put me in a place where I can imagine telling a story about a serpent that lives in the ocean and is so large that it also encircles all the lands of the world.

I found this a little while ago and bookmarked it because it's a goldmine of really cool info about the earliest movements of people. It's a map from Wikipedia on Early Human Migrations, and the whole article is great. I'll paste an example below, but really, it's worth a read.

Populations of Homo sapiens migrated to the Levant and to Europe[dubious – discuss] between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, and possibly in earlier waves as early as 185,000 years ago.

A fragment of a jawbone with eight teeth found at Misliya Cave has been dated to around 185,000 years ago. Layers dating from between 250,000 and 140,000 years ago in the same cave contained tools of the Levallois type which could put the date of the first migration even earlier if the tools can be associated with the modern human jawbone finds.

The Löwenmensch figurine is the oldest confirmed statue to exist, dating to around 40k years ago and was found in an excavation in Germany.

There are some other artifacts that have been identified from around the same time period called Venus statues. From what I've read recently, it seems like they are pretty widespread throughout various different groups of ancient peoples, but the one featured in the link above was also found in Germany in a more recent excavation that the one that discovered the Lion Man statue.

alt link if it doesn't work.