The mainstream academic view holds that writing first appeared during the Sumerian civilization in southern Mesopotamia, around 3300-3200 B.C. in the form of the Cuneiform script. This first writing system did not suddenly appear out of nowhere, but gradually developed from less stylized pictographic systems that used ideographic and mnemonic symbols that contained meaning, but did not have the linguistic flexibility of the natural language writing system that the Sumerians first conceived. These earlier symbolic systems have been labelled as Proto-writing, examples of which have been discovered in a variety of places around the world, some dating back to the 7th Milennium B.C.
One such early example of a proto-writing system is the Vinča script, which is a set of symbols depicted on clay artefacts associated with the Vinča culture, which flourished along the Danube River in the Pannonian Plain, between 6000-4000 B.C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrypillianThe first major population boom in Europe was the product of the Vinca & Cucuteni-Tryptillian cultures.
The Vinca & Cucuteni-Tryptillian cultures are the first civilizations to flourish in Europe & to build the cities with 15,000+ inhabitants. Major cities began in modern day Moldova & Ukraine even before Mesopotamian cities ever started.
*Talianki, Ukraine – circa 3700 B.C. – up to 15,000 inhabitants, up to 2,700 houses, and covered an area of 450 hectares (1100 acres). Talianki is the largest and best studied Trypillian settlement in Ukraine.
*Dobrovody, Ukraine – circa 3800 B.C. – up to 10,000 inhabitants, and covered an area of 250 hectares (600 acres).
*Maydanets, Ukraine – circa 3700 B.C. – up to 10,000 inhabitants (probably between 6000 to 9000 inhabitants), up to 1575 houses, and covered an area of 270 hectares (660 acres).
*Nebelivka, Ukraine - covered an area of 300 hectares (740 acres).
