I can understand why you may find it suspicious. The problem is the abundance of the rather fake history about the dating of the great Indian events & epics. For a very long time, the narrative was monopolized by people who believed that the history of mankind (or life?) is not more than 5000 years ago, (mainly because of the bible or something else)? Therefore, when the British & other Marxist historians found something older than the purported 5000 years, they had to adjust every event in Indian / Hindu history to match it. Too many things have been "adjusted" in this way, unfortunately.

When modern human species evolved approximately 200,000 years ago, it should not be so far fetched to imagine that advanced civilizations existed 10,000 years ago?

A google search provides many good resources & links that I will just fill up my comment to provide. These resources have documented many many proofs, events more than 3000 years ago cannot be treated the same as events 500 or even 1000 years ago, because the archeological remains would not survive that long unfortunately. Please try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=dating+the+ramayana

I think the research done by PN Oak & Dr. Koenraad Elst would be most pertinent. I am assuming that you are not limited or prejudiced by the timelines provided in the bible or something else.