As Graham Hancock suggests, “Advanced doesn’t necessarily look like us.”
I cannot imagine that “all of a sudden” humans became farmers and started writing….just 7,000 years ago.
It simply doesn’t make sense.
But, if we were so advanced we would make a lawn that rakes its own leaves.
I sometimes wonder if things were entirely built on what originally were fortuitous ‘accidents’ or accidental discoveries - Or if Knowledge is just ‘Out There’ all the time, waiting for something inside us to reach out.
I don’t think everything is just trial and error. (The original meaning of ‘genius’ was associated with the supernatural.)