Just a small point. A whale could never swallow a man. They have a tiny throat and eat Krill, small shrimp, to survive.

Secondly man *appears* (there are opposing ideas on this) to have evolved into his current form in africa. That doesn't make it the cradle of civilisation, but just a place where we've found the first evidence of modern man. The cradle of civilisation is actually in the middle east and northern India at places like Mohenjo Daro, where the first farming and writing were developed. There are no equivalents in africa until much, much later.

MelT