My intuitions and my knowledge of statistics hints that there's really no reason much, much older somewhat advanced "societies" couldn't have existed but have just not been excavated or have vanished because of porous materials.
Does anyone know of any good podcasts / books that delves into topics like this?
I've always found fringe theories of lost or "hyper-ancient" civilisations fascinating.
"Civilization is always older than we think; and under whatever sod we tread are the bones of men and women who also worked and loved, wrote songs and made beautiful things, but whose names and very being have been lost in the careless flow of time." - Will Durant
While I have only read his "The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time", his wife Ariel Durant and him co-wrote an 11 volume "biography" of civilization called "The Story of Civilization", which I believe deals with such things.
I also really liked this article, which talks about the difficulty of finding evidence of even large civilizations after enough time: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e...
My favorite though is this documentary series on YouTube. The 2nd installment is especially good. Highly recommend:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwB8gn3XsXHiHDhY3e8XsavyS...