Look beyond Greece?

The earliest civilization to seek answers seems to be The Greek. And much of thier questions are about the conduct of life, especially the most fundamental activity of life, day to day living. That is what we can gather from the nature of available remnants of Greek culture.
Is it that there is no civilization earlier to Greece? Or, is it that there were, but these settlements were quite self-contained, prosperous and happy, and had no problems with life? The latter is quite a possibility. We have been seeing that almost all of ancient records, either refer to the extensive quest behind life's pitfalls, or offer fresh opportunities of entertaining one.  Whichever way the Greek acquired these answers, whether by traveling to Africa for studying with the wise men of ancient Egypt, as suggested by some experts, or by their own vision, they created what we call, the Greek Golden Era of world culture.
Greek Golden Era is thus the record of the efforts to ward off the failures and the oppositions they faced. Isn't it then possible, there were civilizations before The Greek, and the people in those settlements did not face any issues? They were so successful and contended with life that there was nobody looking for 'wasteful' occupations like sculpting, painting, etc., to fill time? They also wouldn't have felt the need to leave records, since there wouldn't have been a necessity or an occasion to leave tips for the future.
I think we need to study, how people before the Greek lived.