While writing doesn’t exist there certianly do exist human artifacts that are much older than 6000 years, as well as art (sculptures, paintings, pottery, etc.) I grew up Mormon and both of my parents were vehemently opposed to evolution. I’ve shed the beliefs of my youth and am no longer surprised at people’s ability to ignore things that disagree with their world-view. If anything it is simply more evidence how much more animal we are, despite our protests to the contrary.

That being said, living in the Southeast all my life, it is rather depressing listening to the blather about forbidding the teaching of evolution in schools and the knowledge that if I want to keep my job (I’ve never bothered to stay at a school long enough to earn tenure), I better not bring up Darwin’s ideas when talking about history, despite Spencer’s bastardized Social Darwinism being a major influence on imperialism, the two World Wars, and even some of our racist attitudes today.

In other words, people added up the ages of individuals in the Bible through each generation back to Adam, and it came to 6000 years. The fact that nobody was taking notes 6000 years ago makes it difficult to readily prove the world is older than that. I’m not saying it can’t be proven by science, only that we have no document to show to a fundamentalist literal-translation Baptist.

The 6000 figure is usually done through adding up the different ages given for individuals. The most famous is the Ussher chronology although there are several others that come out with roughly the same length of time.

The Sumerian Cuneiform script did appear in the Uruk period 4000BC to 3100 BC. This was when civilization in the Fertile Crescent transitioned into the Bronze Age. Different authors demarcate between proto-writing and writing proper so there’s some debate.