Temple of Ranma's Sailor Senshi Seifuku

Ancient aliens were mentioned in another topic, and I usually hear them mentioned (along with ancient astronauts) when some people are pushing theories about how people accomplished and/or understood various things that were done way back when. But my question is: is it really more of a stretch to say instead that people back then, who had to rely more on their brain as a tool, could have used what we think they had at their disposal to do what they did, or with their limitations had a better perspective on how to make the most of what they had and figured out a way of doing something that we haven't thought of yet? I was wondering because I'd like to think that at least some ancient people were smarter than we seem to give them credit for.

Ancient people are as smart as modern ones.

The difference is that ancient people 1) tend to be more ignorant (education was not a big thing and reserved for the upper crust of society) 2) less tech to work with; tech including _ways_ of thinking, such as various philosophies, including the scientific method.

I'm pretty sure Da Vinci would do great things had he lived today.


Which is something I hate about fiction sometimes, especially time travel/ISOT ones, where the time traveller from the future is almost always portrayed as superior, especially ethically. I'm sorry, beating the head of a monarch in and insisting "democracy1!!1!" (or other government type, depending on the author) is _obviously_ better is very, very annoying.

Speaking of Da Vinci, that's sort of what I'm suggesting with the "smarter than we give them credit for" comment I made. By that, I'm referring to a recent theory where the image on the Shroud of Turin is hypothesized to be the earliest use of photography, using himself as a model.

Although that doesn't make a usable example since it isn't confirmed as being true, last I checked. A better example would be how close the ancient Greeks (or was it Romans?) came to harnessing the power of steam.