Humans are relatively new in this universe, being just 2 million years old according to the earliest fossils that have been found.
Recorded history goes back a mere 10k years at most.
The Universe is maybe, approximately, 13-14 billion years old as far as we can judge by the light of the dimmest red stars we can see.
During that time entire civilizations could have risen and fallen into ashes of star novas, never having left their imprint or trace of existence.
We might be no different than they, rising, flourishing and eventually falling into the dust bin of history.
The laws of physics governs all. If they didn’t solve the interstellar travel problem then they were trapped on their own planet or solar system, just as we are, never venturing to even the nearest star.
There may be probes or robots like our Voyager out there that are scouts sent out to explore the reaches of space that have no one to report back to.
I
f or when we do run into one of those, we might be able to decipher its data and then learn of a people who for one bright and shining moment were the masters of their own destiny.......................
The find at Gobekli Teppe is at least 12000 years old. Artifacts have been found in strata dating to millions of years old, like the iron pot found in a lump of Pennsylvania anthracite coal or the metal tools, etc. found under table mountain out West. Foot prints of humans and dinos are found side by side fossilized, down in Texas. The good bet is that our estimates of antiquity for humans, etc. are poorly understood. A better bet is that we humans as yet have not developed a correct understanding of dimension Time. We certainly do not understand the dimension from which consciousness derives. And the dimension of spirit? well, that is our least understood dimension.