“Sumerians The First Civilization” Samuel Noah Kramer has a book called, History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History, and "it gives the definitive account of the achievements of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq during the third millennium B.C. They were the developers of the cuneiform writing system, perhaps their greatest contribution to civilization, which allowed laws and literature to be recorded for the first time."