why didn't the great god progress save many of the past fallen civilizations? were they running out of Oxygen?
Innovation can eventually be produced, but it's an accidental sub-product. Innovation it's not the metric that markets are optimizing.
Sure, markets pick up innovations when they are profitable. But not otherwise, and I'm doubtful if the market economy is actually a net positive for innovation. What is innovation if it means finding another way to sell you stuff you don't need anyway.
If you want to pick a civilization whose gifts weren't subsumed into a larger, still growing civilization, you'd have to pick, what, Atlantis? A myth? OK then.