History Main / AdvancedAncienthumans

* In [[TabletopGame Pathfinder]] there was ancient Thassilon, a human kingdom that existed over 10,000 years ago where humans not only reigned in great power but were (at least in 1st edition) superior to present day humans (having a +2 to all ability scores instead of just to one) and was ruled over by sevenj powerful wizards called the Runelords. The empire fell when the Aboleths tried to wipe out all life on the planet with a poisonous meteor that took the sacrifice of three deities to downgrade from "Planet-wide extinction" to "post-apocalypse". At least three of the first edition adventure paths deal with the runelords trying to return and reassert their dominance over Golarion.

* In TabletopGame/Pathfinder there was ancient Thassilon, a human kingdom that existed over 10,000 years ago where humans not only reigned in great power but were (at least in 1st edition) superior to present day humans (having a +2 to all ability scores instead of just to one) and was ruled over by sevenj powerful wizards called the Runelords. The empire fell when the Aboleths tried to wipe out all life on the planet with a poisonous meteor that took the sacrifice of three deities to downgrade from "Planet-wide extinction" to "post-apocalypse". At least three of the first edition adventure paths deal with the runelords trying to return and reassert their dominance over Golarion.

* Creator/AndreiLivadny's novel ''Ark'' heavily implies that the planet that the titular Moon-sized starship (it ''is'' the actual Moon, hollowed-out and rigged with engines) crash-lands on is Earth in distant past, especially since the first person out of the ship is a shepherd named Noah. Oh, and the crash happens to have emptied (or ''parted'', perhaps) a sea. Apparently, the giant ship has somehow traveled back in time. The author obviously ignores the consequences of a Moon-sized object hitting Earth (not to mention a giant spherical mountain that we have somehow missed).

* The fall of the Western Roman Empire was this for western Europe. The Roman system reached a level of sophistication and expanse that would not be equaled in western Europe for more than a thousand years after its fall. Centralized government and administration, professional armies, large-scale architecture - all these things would take hundreds of years to reemerge.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Cook has a spaceship and Norda came from another planet, so she probably had one too. Their first names [[AdamAndEvePlot turn out to be Adam and Eve]].

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy1'': In the original version, this is indicated by the Floating Castle (AKA Flying Fortress) is an orbital space station, referred to as a castle in-game because the characters don't have any other vocabulary to describe it. This is why you can see the stars out the windows and it's full of robots and other high-tech trappings. It also means that the "prosperous nations" of the past had access to super-modern technology and that the scope of devastation inflicted by Tiamat and Kraken is much more extensive than you first thought.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': Gilgamesh is disgusted with modern civilization for this reason. During his reign, humanity was a very powerful and advanced race. Gilgamesh believes humanity has declined because there are so many humans now, and the intrinsic strength of humanity has become diluted in each human as a result. The reason he desires the Grail is because he wants to bring that golden age back [[spoiler:by using the Grail to kill most of humanity. He would then rebuild his kingdom with the worthy survivors]]. The disturbing part is that due to the way magic works, there's a good chance he's right.

* In ''FanFic/TheBridge'' hints established in the ''Heisei Godzilla'', ''Gamera'', and ''Rebirth of Mothra'' series (which were combine thanks to a SharedUniverse Retcon) were expanded upon. 77,000 years ago humanity had a full knowledge of mana using magic, lived alongside TheFairFolk, had Magitek advanced enough to control the weather and build floating cities; and [[AdvancedAncientAcropolis now mythical civilizations]] like Atlantis and the Mu empire were very real. And then the BigBad came along and enacted the ''Toba Catastrophe'', wiping out almost all sentient life. The effort to seal him away [[SealedEvilInACan under Attu Island]] took away most of the world's magic.

* While there's no evidence of any civilizations with current day levels of technology, there were quite a few who were advanced compared to what followed, particularly since until a certain point, even the largest societies were at risk of being wiped out by a natural disaster. The Minoans of Santorini, considered a likely inspiration for the legend of Atlantis, are a prime example. They were quite advanced for 4000 years ago,[[note]]Their capital Akrotiri had paved roads, a sewer system and multi-story buildings, and they produced especially high-quality pottery.[[/note]] but unfortunately the wonderfully fertile island on which they built their civilization was ''the crater of a supervolcano''. Around 1600 BC, the city center was completely obliterated by one of the largest eruptions in human history, and the rest of the island was buried under the volcanic ash, with their empire splintering in the aftermath into the many Greek {{city state}}s.

* ''Manga/DrStone'': [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] where it is ''Modern'' day Humans that were the more advanced civilization [[TakenForGranite before all of Humanity was transformed into Stone Statues]] and was stuck for 3700 years, causing all of their structures and technology to slowly corrode and rust away. [[spoiler:The reason why there are non-petrified humans are because [[WhatAboutTheAstronauts they are the descendants of six Astronauts that were on the ISS at the time]] [[AdamAndEvePlot that came back down to Earth and started repopulating.]]]] [[ScienceHero Senku]] shares this information with Chrome, vowing to restart Human Civilization once again as The Kingdom of Science.

* Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Twilight Eyes''. At some point in the distant past humanity had a highly developed civilization, including genetic engineering. They created a race of evil shapeshifters that [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters went out of control and destroyed civilization]] so thoroughly that modern humans can't find any trace of it.

* Creator/StephenBaxter's Manifold setting plays with this. It doesn't apply in the [[Literature/ManifoldTime first book]] because the Downstreamers are actually time travelers from the far future, but the [[Literature/ManifoldSpace second]] and [[Literature/ManifoldOrigin third]] books, as well as some of the short stories, take place in [[TheMultiverse various universes]] that the Downstreamers created at the end of the first book, where variations on humanity were guided to evolve as experiments under different conditions.

* The Hylians and Sheikah from ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' are portrayed as having once produced lots of advanced futuristic {{Magitek}} in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' respectively. In the former game, excessive development resulted in environmental degradation and desertification that left the advanced civilization in ruins, while in the latter game, the Kingdom of Hyrule deliberately abandoned the technology out of fear of its power and only dug it back up 10,000 years later to use it against Calamity Ganon.

* ''Creator/MasamuneShirow'' also plays with this in his second work, Orion. The main story takes place billions of years before present, in a multi-galactic Human precursor civilization. Many of the main characters and their personalities are based on Shinto or Buddhist deities or the Cthulhu Mythos.

* In later chapters of the original manga version of ''Manga/BlackMagicM66'', the cyberpunk Human civilization scours the surface of their home-world in a genocidal war with their Bioroid creations. [[spoiler:Venus never recovers, but the handful of refugees who make it to Earth flourish]]. Many of Black Magic's themes, including more oblique references to Precursor Humans, reappeared in ''Manga/Appleseed''

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', episode "Probe 7 - Over And Out": Cook has a spaceship and Norda came from another planet, so she probably had one too. Their first names [[AdamAndEvePlot turn out to be Adam and Eve]].

* The Indus Valley has a much higher background radiation field than the rest of Asia. Myth/HinduMythology contains references to aircraft (Vimaans), tanks (Juggernauts), and city-breaking superweapons (Brahmastras), leading some to hypothesize that it's actually a FutureImperfect retelling of a nuclear war. There is no archeological evidence of this so far, though, but it hasn't stopped some from claiming all these things really existed then.

* The Elder Race of Man from the RockOpera ''Music/TwentyOneTwelve'' by ''Music/{{Rush}}''. A culture that valued creativity and the arts, the Elder Race was at some point thought destroyed and replaced by the Solar Federation. WordOfGod says the final track in the series is meant to represent the return of the Elder Race and the defeat of the culturally repressive Federation.

* ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': In "Fausta, the Nazi Wonder Woman", Wonder Woman tells us that the Amazons of Paradise Island have "existed in peace and happiness for twenty-six centuries", thus predating the Roman Empire. They have guns, invisible planes, telepathy, and each Amazon has SuperStrength.

Compare HumanAliens, AdamAndEvePlot, EarthAllAlong. For a specific subtrope of this, see {{Atlantis}} (depending on how advanced it's depicted as being). For ''any'' species that came before us, including aliens, see {{Precursors}}. Compare UltraTerrestrials, when an alien species turns out to also be from Earth but developed and left way in pre-history (before humans were around). Often overlaps with HumanityCameFromSpace. When the story is set in a future where humanity is extinct, see HumanitysWake. See HumanityIsAdvanced where humanity is the current Advanced Alien. If we have evolved to the point these guys are not immediately recognizable as human they may also be OriginalMan.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', ancient humans were able to perform magic, which granted them safety from [[OurDemonsAreDifferent the Grimm]] and let them create wonders. However, [[spoiler:they were all wiped out by the God of Darkness, and their second generation was made without that capacity]], so modern humans have no magical prowess and live in fear of the Grimm. [[BigBad Salem]] and [[BigGood Ozpin]] are two people from this time and retained their magic in addition to the immortality they were cursed with.