Board Thread:Series general discussion/@comment-2112031-20151005125649/@comment-2112031-20151005163802
Check out their article here; it answers most of your questions.
Simply put, the First Civilisation are a kind of 'version 1 human', becoming the planet's dominant species in their era, like humans have become in ours. As for your theory about evolving from apes, I can tell you that that is certainly **not** the case.
The First Civilisation artificially altered the DNA of a pre-existing species (primates) in order to create both Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis, who they then used as a workforce, and military outfit respectively.
The existance of primitive apes during the time of the First Civilization doesn't disprove that they shared common ancestry with them, the same way that humans are very closely related to modern chimpanzees and bonobos. It makes sense that the First Civilization, when making their slave labor force, would choose to alter primitive apes, as they would be most closely related to them.
Not a single species on the planet has developed completely independent of every other species, the First Civilization HAD to have evolved from a more primitive ancestor. As I've already pointed out, they share numerous traits with other primates.