Many scholars date the beginning of civilization as the Sumerian culture because this civilization is the first known to have a system of writing using cuneiform.  Part of their literature was an Epic of Creation written on 7 tablets that were read each year as part of the New Year’s festivities.  The account is similar to the Iroquois and Genesis stories in that all identify a female mother of the earth.

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The Sumerian Creation
Only one account of the Sumerian creation has survived, . . introduction to the story of "The Huluppu-Tree" (Wolkstein 4).

 
"An" the male sky god and "Ki" the female earth were separated by Enlil, their son and later the chief god of the pantheon. . . .But where did heaven (An) and earth (Ki) come from, you may ask?  According to another text, it was Nammu, the sea, "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth" (Kramer, Sumerian

Mythology 39). 

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/SumerianMyth.htm

Professor Michael Webster 

 

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Genesis

1:2 The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness.

3:20 Then Adam named his wife Eve,^[c] because she would be the mother of all people everywhere.

6:4 In those days, and even afterward, giants^[a] lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes mentioned in legends of old.

1:9 Let the waters beneath the sky be gathered into one place so dry ground may appear." And so it was. 10God named the dry ground "land"

1:3 Let there be light," and there was light.

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Iroquois Creation Story

lower world was in a great darkness

 

and there was a woman conceived

 

The monsters of the great water were alarmed

 

in order to procure some earth, if it could be obtained

 

good mind was not contented to remain in a dark situation, and he was anxious to create a great light in the dark world

 

16 For God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, to shine down upon the earth. The greater one, the sun, presides during the day; the lesser one, the moon, presides through the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the heavens to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

 

2:7 And the LORD God formed a man's body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.

 

1:24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth every kind of animal--livestock, small animals, and wildlife." And so it was. 25God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to reproduce more of its own kind. And God saw that it was good.

 

1:26Then God said, "Let us make people^[b] in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life--the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals,^[c] and small animals."

 

At first he took the parent's head (the deceased) of which he created an orb, and established it in the center of the firmament, and because of very superior nature to bestow light to the new world, (now the sun) and again he took the remnant of the body and formed another orb, which was inferior to the light, (now the moon.)

 

 

and he found two images of the dust of the ground in his own likeness, male and female, and by his breathing into their nostrils he gave them the living souls. and named them Ea-gwe-howe, i e. a real people; and he gave the Great Island, all the animals of game for their maintenance:

 

and then created numerous species of animals of the smallest and greatest, to inhabit the forests, and fish of all kinds to inhabit the waters

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