The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations where, according to current archaeological data, civilization is understood to have emerged. Current thinking is that there was no single "cradle", but several civilizations that developed independently, of which the Near Eastern Neolithics, Mesopotamia and Egypt, were the first. Other civilizations arose in Asia among cultures situated along large river valleys, notably the Indus River in the Indian Subcontinent and the Yellow River in China. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and those of East Asia is disputed. Scholars accept that the civilizations of Norte Chico in present-day Peru and that of Mesoamerica emerged independently from those in Eurasia.