One of the very first forms of writing is called cuneiform. It was common in the ancient period near east. They used characteristics made up of wedge shapes. Cuneiform was an ancient Sumerian writing style. They would write on clay and used grass the way we'd use pens. They would then bake the clay to make it hard. They used pictograms, which are symbols to represent an object. To show concepts they would superimpose pictures on top of pictures. Because these illustrated concepts were too difficult to understand, they began to evolve by using ideograms and having one simplified symbol to represent concepts. However, they needed to develop symbols for phonetic sounds. Their ideograms eventually evolved into phonograms, which are symbols used to represent speech-sound. So, I believe that the writing has been crucial because their symbols have eventually evolved to our modern day alphabet. Our alphabet is also symbols for phonetic sounds. For example, they show you in kindergarten: A is the 'ah' sound, B is the 'buh' sound, C is the 'cuh' sound, etc.
I believe that the invention of writing has been crucial to the establishment of the world's greatest ancient civilizations because they were able to record history. With this tool, and our later translations it is able to help us currently better understand what accomplishments man-kind has made throughout years and years of hard work, discovery/exploration, learning, and inventing.
Not only has writing been crucial for recording history, but establishing civilizations requires great work and architectural successes. I imagine after the invention of writing, writing down blue prints and plans for their structures must have made these architects have better foundations and longer duration. It probably also made it easier to build.
I believe that the invention of writing has also made communication easier. We don't have to run into someone to contact them. Writing letters is possible, and little by little we have evolved even to text messages, e-mails, instant messages, etc. With web cams, we won't even need writing for distant communication! haha
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