This is not true. Cities and Civilizations go back to the time of the Agricultural/Neolithic revolution around 7 000 years ago. For example, we have archaeological evidence for cities from this time.
However, the question depends on the interpretation of "recent": compared to the time span of evolution from Most Recent Common Ancestor with Chimpazees (5 million years ago): this is very recent.
It was imagined to be completely flat and wide with no large deformities, so basically they thought it would be sort of a massive underwater desert, boy were they wrong .
