i heard it was started in the contient of africa. i all so here that africa was more civilized then other contients that it was on its like 7th dyanasty or even more before the rest of the world caught up with them.

The answer to "where did civilization start?" is "yes." Or maybe, "on the planet Earth."

You see, in ancient times the diffusion of information was much, much slower than it is today, and it's entirely likely that people thought up many similar things, like living in cities, independently. I gather that it's possible to make a very good case for independent beginnings of civilization in the Tigris/Euphrates river system in Iraq, in the Nile Valley in Egypt, and in the Yangtze Valley in China, not to mention the Ganges Valley in India, the Peruvian Andes (the Incas), and the Yucatan peninsula (the Mayas).

Honors probably belong to Catal Huyuk in Turkey, which may be the oldest city in the world. By latest reports, it appears to have been founded by hunter-gatherers as an oversized village, without agriculture or the division of labor we associate with "civilization." Catal Huyuk is at least 10,000 years old (Egypt, by comparison, is a relative upstart; her civilization dates from a mere 7,000 years ago), and was the center of a thriving obsidian trade before Egypt had her first kings.

I don't know where your information came from, but it is probably not relevent because civilization arose independently in a number of times and places. As an extreme example, the Maya/Toltec civilizations were not founded until Egypt, China, and even Rome were already going concerns; but the American civilizations were nevertheless independent developments.

Because I'm not an archaeologist, I can't point you to the best sources, but here are three that I like (all unfortunately out-of-print, but probably available at your local library).

• The Ancient Engineers, by L. Sprague de Camp.
• Food in History, a really quite scholarly yet very entertaining book by Reay Tannahill.
• Sex in History, also by Reay Tannahill; just as much fun, but less wide-ranging.