Have you ever noticed how we assume that we are the most advanced version of humanity that’s ever existed?
Like everything before us was primitive…
basic…
still figuring things out.
But what if that’s not entirely true?
What if we’re not the first to get this far?
What if we’re just the latest?
Civilizations rise.
That’s expected.
But they also fall.
And not always slowly…
sometimes completely.
Entire cultures… gone.
Not weakened.
Not faded.
Gone.
Cities buried.
Knowledge lost.
History reduced to fragments.
And we don’t always have the answer why.
One thing to be clear about though—
Most of these civilizations aren’t myths.
They existed.
We’ve found their cities…
their tools…
their writings.
And we can still walk through parts of their world today.
What we don’t fully understand…
is how something that real…
that advanced…
can just disappear.
Let’s look at the Maya civilization, for example.
They had advanced math,
astronomy,
massive cities…
and then—collapse.
No single clear cause.
Could have been drought.
War.
Maybe overpopulation.
Maybe all of it.
Or maybe something we still don’t fully understand.
Now the Aztecs—this one’s different.
Because here, we actually know more about what happened.
The arrival of Hernán Cortés.
Disease—especially smallpox.
Internal fractures.
A powerful empire brought down fast.
Not by one thing…
but a perfect storm.
And that matters.
Because it shows how quickly something strong…
can unravel.
Now—one you might be surprised I’m including in this conversation…
Atlantis.
This one’s different too… but in a unique way.
Because unlike the others,
we don’t have physical proof.
No ruins we can point to and say,
“There it is.”
But what we do have…
comes from Plato.
A detailed account of an advanced civilization…
gone in a single event.
So whether it was real, symbolic,
or something in between—
it still raises the same question:
Can something advanced…
be erased that completely?
I was watching a documentary the other day
about the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri.
And what struck me wasn’t just the storm…
it was what came after.
The town of Joplin—for all intents and purposes—was no more.
And survivors who had lived there their whole lives…
were lost.
Trying to find their way home.
No landmarks.
No reference points.
Nothing left to guide them.
And we know for a fact…
that events like this have happened.
Take Pompeii.
A thriving Roman city…
frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
People didn’t have time to react.
Didn’t have time to process what was happening.
One moment—life as normal.
The next…
buried under ash.
Preserved exactly where they stood.
This wasn’t a slow collapse.
This was a moment.
And then there’s the part we sometimes forget to consider—
the unknown.
The possibility that we’re actually missing something.
Lost knowledge.
Misread evidence.
Because the truth is…
we’re still digging.
Literally.
We like to believe we’d see it coming.
That we’d have time to react.
To fix it.
To course-correct.
But history doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes the warning signs are there…
And sometimes…
they’re only obvious after it’s too late.
Maybe lost civilizations aren’t just history.
Maybe they’re patterns.
Or warnings.
Or reminders…
that progress doesn’t guarantee permanence.
That everything we’ve built…
everything we recognize…
could disappear to the point where
someone, somewhere…
is standing in what used to be our world…
asking the same question.
This is How Did We Get Here?
A podcast about the choices, cracks, and crossroads that shape us.
I’m Jim Richmond.
And I’m still here for a reason.
Maybe you are too.
