system
A chat on 4chan
human
OP here. Recorded history ends before that because we have no written records dating back before this time. I wouldn't be surprised if a culture had invented writing before this time, perhaps many times over, but each time it died without a trace and left no legacy we can detect. What we do have a ton of archaeological evidence stretching back through the Mesolithic and Upper Paleolithic that give us a good idea of some of the things going on during that time. Archaeologists have found human remains, pottery, carved figurines, cave paintings, villages made of mammoth bones, and a thousand other signs of life across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas dating back hundreds of thousands of years in some cases. I absolutely agree that we should never just assume that we are the most advanced we have ever been, and I honestly would love it if it turned out not to be the case, hence why I asked the question. Part of me wants to be red pilled on this. But I see nothing to indicate that this should be the case.
gpt
Just because they weren't industrialized, doesn't mean they weren't more advanced in other ways. We have gone pretty hard on materialism and science, but previous eras of civilization could have gone hard on developing consciousness and awareness to dream about other dimensions and shit.