The Sumerians are particularly interesting.  They are the earliest well collaborated civilization.  They roughly occupied Babylonia – well before the appearance of other civilizations.

The term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning "the black-headed people", and to their land as ki-en-gi(-r) ('place' + 'lords' + 'noble'), meaning "place of the noble lords". The Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar, all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Shumer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

I’m fascinated to read here “black-headed people”.  From the Book of Jubilees, I believe that the world was divided among Noah’s sons

• Ham: South – black peoples – my great … uncle
• Japheth: North – white peoples – my great … grandad
• Shem: Middle – brown peoples – my great … uncle

Ham’s four sons – my distant cuzzies were allocated

• Mizraim: Egypt
• Cush: South of Egypt e.g. Sudan, Ethiopia
• Put: West of Egypt e.g. Lybia
• Canaan: West Africa but occupied “Palestine” e.g. Hittites, Sodom and Gomorrah etc.

Genesis 10:8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. ⁹He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ ¹⁰The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.

The tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ²As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
³They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and bitumen for mortar. ⁴Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’
⁵But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’
⁸So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹That is why it was called Babel – because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

So, within a few centuries after Noah’s flood a single nation is established around Iraq, led by a mighty black warlord.  This nation experiences a collapse, followed by many other nations springing up all around the world.

I thought I should be able to see the remains of this tower on Google maps, but its materials need not be expected to remain for thousands of years – perhaps merely as a mountain of oily clay.

I equate Sumer with Nimrod’s early kingdom soon after Noah’s flood.