" When we study the past seeking evidence of a highly advanced culture, we should not expect to find objects that we associate with our own culture. Different cultures develop along different paths. This process occurs even over relatively short periods of time, especially when one society is isolated from others. For example, when the Allies went into Germany after Hitler's defeat, they found that after only twelve years of isolation German technology was being developed along lines vastly different from our own. Pauwels and Bergier wrote:
'When the War in Europe ended on May 8th, 1945, missions of investigation were immediately sent out to visit Germany after her defeat. Their reports have been published; the catalogue alone has 300 pages. Germany had only been separated from the world since 1933. In twelve years the technical evolution of the Reich developed along strangely divergent lines. Although the Germans were behindhand as regards the atomic bomb, they had perfected giant rockets unmatched by any in America or Russia. They may not have had radar, but they had perfected a system of infra-red ray detectors which were quite as effective. Though they did not invent silicones, they had developed an entirely new organic chemistry, based on the eight-ring carbon chain. [...] They had rejected the theory of relativity and tended to neglect the quantum theory. [...] They believed in the existence of eternal ice and that the planets and the stars were blocks of ice floating in space. If it has been possible for such wide divergencies to develop in the space of twelve years in our modern world, in spite of the exchange of ideas and mass communications, what view must one take of the civilizations of the past? To what extent are our archaeologists qualified to judge the state of the sciences, techniques, philosophy and knowledge that distinguished, say, the Maya or Khmer civilizations? "

― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt