 Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as in ancient and modern times, to have been connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions.Urban civilization, which includes modern-day Afghanistan, North India, and Pakistan, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BC.