Is history wrong?

[GennGreymane]

I mean our perception

Is it possible there were civilizations far older than the ones we know of? Were they more advanced than we think?

DISCUSS!

[Medusa Cascade]

My internet history is wrong on so many levels....oh...

[GennGreymane]

My internet history is wrong on so many levels....oh...

Tell us something we dont know

[Deleted]

Well we could have insufficient knowledge of the past, which does make it a possibility that there has been civilizations that we don't know off and that they were more advanced than we think. However, history is only what we know, so it can't technically be wrong.

[Xeones]

Unless you want to get into aliens there isn't much basis for us to go off of to theorize over it. I'm sure you're trying to talk about Atlantis which there just isn't any evidence of.

[Medusa Cascade]

Tell us something we dont know

You asked for it, I once masturbated during school assembly

[zenkai]

Dinosaurs had feathers!

[Fascinate]

Ok this is my thread.

Not only are your intuitions viable, they are most likely LOGICAL.

I believe we have had far greater knowledge than we have now but i am not talking in the terms people would equate to an advanced civilization, i mean we were likely far more spiritually advanced.

I believe in the past ~20-30k years people knew who our creator was and that would explain most if not all of the crazy (to us) megalithic structures that still stand on this earth to date, pyramids included.

You see you can have a creator without religion, our religion today separates people and i know for sure a real knowledge of a creator would bring people together. I think it is a matter of time before this lost knowledge comes back to us, or at least that is my hope.

[GennGreymane]

Dinosaurs had feathers!

AND THEY WERE MARVELOUS! Spectacular even!

[Lady Dragonheart]

Our perception, yes. History is often written by the winners.

[Pannonian]

Was there intelligent life long before us? Probably - we cannot know. Where there big civilizations? Probably not, as we have no indication whatsoever.

Where they as advanced/more advanced? I'm pretty sure not, because in contrast to earth man-made structures last much longer in space and we don't have anything. Unless we are tricked by governments/NASA of course...

[GennGreymane]

Here is something

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baigong_pipes

[Fascinate]

Here is something

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baigong_pipes

You are on the right path my dude, but the wrong track. Dont think in terms of technological achievements as our brains would recognize (for that, just google the antikythera machine). No, we WERE more advanced in the past but in the ways of knowing how and why we were meant to be. That is what advanced actually means.

[Independent voter]

Yes, history it wrong, it was made up during the 1930s. You see people had forgotten to record history, this made them so embarrassed that they got some writers together and fabricated a history.

[isuridedes]

Is it possible there were civilizations far older than the ones we know of? Were they more advanced than we think?

... how does one discuss this in a meaningful fashion?

Is it possible? Sure... in the same way that an all-mighty divine being is possible. Is there any measurable evidence to support this hypothesis? At this time no, there is not.

[Fascinate]

No shit i was about to make this exact same thread, but decided to just contribute.

We really do not know our history, not a clue only guesses.

[Pannonian]

Here is something

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baigong_pipes

Really.. could be anything. But as they're obviously highly radioactive they are probably not that old because of radioactive decay.
@Humans knew more: Sorry, that sound a bit too spiritual to me, but you have a point. Stone-Age people were maybe "better" humans; at least they were more skilfull and had bigger brains, as they weren't as specialized as we are today. Their skillsets were way more diversified - they knew plants, animals, how to cook create clothing, fire etc. Everyone had to knew that. So in a sense you could make a country great again by introducing a second stone age...

[Fascinate]

Our perception of history is very limited. For thousands of years conquering armies destroyed cultures, texts and wrote their own version of history. The only way to truly know what happened would be to have a time machine with the ability to remotely view the past without influencing it.

There was clearly something huge happening before written records given the megaliths that scatter this world today, my honest guess is of a knowledge we simply cannot comprehend today. What else would possess so many cultures to erect such magnificent structures? There is also the how, maybe the knowledge of a creator came with advanced knowledge on how to harness energies on this earth?

[GodlyBob]

I'm feeling so very trolled and/or triggered right now I just...rargh! If there were a better counter point than "uniformitarianism doesn't exist." I'd put more stock into it but...God dammit Internet, why you do this to me?

[Endus]

A few points;

1> To nail this to the wall right at the outset, people have always been ingenious, and lower tech levels meant people got imaginative, and found ways to do things that we've forgotten, because we just have better ways to do it now. This goes for building pyramids, moving huge stones, all that stuff. All those structures are within our capabilities at the eras they were built, even if we're struggling to figure out exactly how. Also goes for things like the Antikythera Mechanism, which is an amazing piece of craftsmanship but totally achievable in the 2nd century BC.

2> Human history covers a narrow slice of time. The modern human species has been around for about 200,000 years. Human recorded history covers about the last 5,000. The oldest structures we know off push that back just another couple thousand years. It's theoretically possible that an earlier group of people developed metallurgy and began building stone structures, especially if they were in an iron-rich area and skipped over copper/bronze metallurgy (iron would rust to nothing under most conditions, if they existed much further back in time than current historical record). The evidence of their society could have simply worn down to nothing. Particularly since there was another interglacial period about 120,000 years ago; not only would conditions have favored the emergence of greater civilization, but the glacial period that kicked back (the last "ice age", in popular parlance) could have literally scoured that evidence away, and destroyed any trace of domesticated plants and animals that didn't survive. This is particularly true when you account for land subsidence and such; the shorelines would have been pretty significantly different. However, the higher technology level that was achieved, the more likely traces would have survived, so it's unlikely that any prior civilizations ever achieved anything above iron-age level technology.