History Main / AdvancedAncienthumans

This trope is when modern-day/near-future Humans discover that they actually had a super advanced society eons ago, in pre-history, i.e. ''homo sapiens'' are their own {{Precursors}}. This prehistoric civilization, for whatever reason, fell or disappeared before recorded history, thus explaining why nobody knew about it before. Oftentimes they lived in an AdvancedAncientAcropolis which they'll leave behind for present explorers to marvel at.

Compare AdamAndEvePlot and EarthAllAlong. For a specific subtrope of this, see {{Atlantis}} (depending on how advanced it's depicted). 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). When the story is set in a future where Humanity is extinct, see HumanitysWake. See HumanityIsAdvanced where Humanity is the current Advanced Alien.

Compare AdamAndEvePlot and EarthAllAlong. For a specific subtrope of this, see {{Atlantis}} (depending on how advanced it's depicted). 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). When the story is set in a future where Humanity is extinct, see HumanitysWake.

*** Just as often, things are no worse, in some ways they may well be better, but the political and cultural transition gets them remembered in a bad light. That's one of several reasons the "Dark Ages" are no longer called that.

** The fall of great civilizations usually led to a Dark Age that made the past look good in comparison.

[[caption-width-right:345:A long time ago, in a galaxy kinda/sorta like this one...]]

* ''Literature/HaloCryptum'' reveals humanity had a galaxy-spanning empire several hundred millennia ago, but lost it all in a war with the Forerunners, [[AbusivePrecursors who then forcefully degenerated their society]]. That happened after they won against Flood.

* The Kingdom of Zeal from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. The game is initially set in "1000 AD", and Zeal takes place in "12,000 BC" (i.e. 13,000 years prior). The Kingdom was a mighty civilization with both advanced technology and access to powerful magic. Unfortunately, their source for all this was a sleeping EldritchAbomination who one day ''woke up'' and wiped them from the map (almost literally; their civilization existed on a floating continent that was destroyed and fell into the ocean).

[[caption-width-right:345:A long time ago, in a galaxy not very far away...]]

[[caption-width-right:345:A long time ago, in a galaxy kinda like this one...]]

[[caption-width-right:345:A long time ago, in a galaxy much like our own...]]

* ''Literature/HaloCryptum'' reveals humanity had a galaxy-spanning empire several hundred millennia ago, but lost it all in a war with the Forerunners, [[AbusivePrecursors who then forcefully degenerated their society]].

* It's not really elaborated on, but in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', the characters find themselves on a planet with an ancient Egypt-like culture. They assume that [[AncientAstronauts these aliens visited Earth thousands of years ago and inspired Egyptian culture]], but it turns out the reverse is true: ancient Egyptians had interstellar travel and visited that planet thousands of years ago.

* 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 mysterious group in ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' known as "Those Who Have Gone Before" are revealed to be the remnants of a once-great advanced society prior to recorded history. The implication is that Those Who Have Gone Before were an earlier subspecies of ''Homo Sapiens'', about as close to us as the Neanderthals. They were able to interbreed with humans, which means a pretty close genetic relationship.

This trope is when modern-day/near-future Humans discover that they actually had a super advanced society eons ago, in pre-history. This prehistoric civilization, for whatever reason, fell or disappeared before recorded history, thus explaining why nobody knew about it before. Oftentimes they lived in an AdvancedAncientAcropolis which they'll leave behind for present explorers to marvel at.

* ''HaloCryptum'' reveals humanity had a galaxy-spanning empire several hundred millennia ago, but lost it all in a war with the Forerunners, [[AbusivePrecursors who then forcefully degenerated their society]].

* 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.

!Examples:

* Happens in ''TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'' with the people of Mu and Atlantis being the precursors

* DcComics villain King Kull is the last survivor of a highly-advanced Neanderthal-like race, who had enslaved primitive humans until these revolted and killed them all. Kull escaped by placing himself in suspended animation until the present day, where he became an enemy of CaptainMarvel.

* ''EmpireFromTheAshes'' by DavidWeber. In it, ''the Moon'' turns out to be a giant ancient human starship, and all humans on Earth at the descendants of it's crew.

* The punchline of the FrankHerbert short story "Occupation Force" is that the aliens who just landed in Washington DC are just checking up on a colony they founded...roughly seven thousand years ago.
* In the massively convoluted history of the PerryRhodan universe, there are several precursor species that turned out to be either human or descended from a common ancestor. Specifically, Atlantis was colonized by the survivors of an alien expedition who were, unknown to themselves, actually descended from the ''last'' interstellar civilization to arise on Earth.
* A somewhat weird example: In TerryPratchett's early sci-fi novel ''Strata'', a human explorer ends up on an obviously artificial disc-shaped 'Earth' inhabited by medieval humans (and stuff like demons, djinni and dragons). She ends up launching a project to transfer the disc's inhabitants from their failing world to a newly-built planet, which is very strongly implied to be ''our'' Earth. It gets weirder, though, with the second part of the TwistEnding: The entire ''universe'' turns out to be artificial, made by the same SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that produced the disc...who then colonized it, voluntarily forgetting about their origins to become ordinary flesh-and-blood 'natives'. So basically, humanity ends up being its own precursor twice over.

* AndreNorton's ''Operation Time Search''. The fabled civilizations of Mu, Atlantis and others really existed and had highly advanced {{magitech}}. In the original timeline they were all destroyed as a result of the evil actions of Atlantis, but the intervention of an accidental time traveler changed history so they still existed in the present.
* In ''HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', humans are the descendants of the Golgafrinchans. They sent the most ''useless third'' of their population(phone sanitizers et.c) to crash land on Earth. [[spoiler:The entire remaining population was then wiped out by a plague contracted from a dirty telephone.]]

* In ''BattlestarGalactica'' [[spoiler:it's revealed that the whole show has been set many thousands of years in the past, meaning their advanced society predates ours]].

* ''BlakesSeven'' had a couple of episodes that implied a human(oid?) galactic civilization existed tens of thousands of years before the present.
* Subverted by ''{{Fringe}}'', which built the mysterious "First People" into its mythology starting in the second season and really taking off in the third... only to reveal that the "First People" were actually [[spoiler:the main characters who sent technology back in time for their past selves to find in order to heal the damage done to the universe by technology run amok]]...or something like that. It was never explained just ''why'' they had to invent a whole ancient hieroglyph aesthetic for the world-saving machine, unless they actually ''wanted'' to convince people that they were some kind of ancient civilization of humans that evolved billions of years before the dinosaurs (stretching scientific credibility so thin you can see through it).
* In the TwilightZone "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]].
* ''Space1999'' The episode "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Testament_of_Arkadia The Testament of Arkadia]]" has the crew of Moonbase Alpha discover that Earth was settled from another planet 25,000 years ago.

* BlueDragon has ancient technological ruins in an otherwise feudal Japan-type society.

* Whatever previous group of people that left behind the ancient ruins in a game of {{VideoGame/Civilization}}. If you recover technology from one of the ruins, it will always be one more advanced than the ones you already have, which means you can recover industrial or modern technologies if you happen upon one late in the game.

* The mysterious group in ''AssassinsCreed'' known as "Those Who Have Gone Before" are revealed to be the remnants of a once-great advanced society prior to recorded history. The implication is that Those Who Have Gone Before were an earlier subspecies of ''Homo Sapiens'', about as close to us as the Neanderthals. They were able to interbreed with humans, which means a pretty close genetic relationship...
* In {{Arcanum}}, the ancient civilization of Vendigroth had technology in advance of anything that Arcanum's recent industrial revolution has developed; including medicinal compounds that can resurrect the dead, mass-produced ClockPunk automatons, schematics for the most powerful gun in the game, and a technology powered {{Macguffin}} that allows you to kill the FinalBoss.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''StarWars'', of course, is set "a long time ago", though it's never quite clear if the Humans in that galaxy are the same as us or just HumanAliens.

* The Kingdom of Zeal from ''ChronoTrigger''. The game is initially set in "1000 AD", and Zeal takes place in "12,000 BC" (i.e. 13,000 years prior). The Kingdom was a mighty civilization with both advanced technology and access to powerful magic. Unfortunately, their source for all this was a sleeping EldritchAbomination who one day ''woke up'' and wiped them from the map (almost literally; their civilization existed on a floating continent that was destroyed and fell into the ocean).

* The ''Giants'' series of novels by James P. Hogan revolve around the discovery that Homo Sapiens actually evolved on the now-destroyed planet Minerva between Mars and Jupiter over forty thousand years ago.