Asia
The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.
Mica
Human use of mica dates back to prehistoric times. Mica was known to ancient Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman and Chinese civilizations, as well as the Aztec civilization of the New World.