Yours appears to me to be a view that is very strange not to extend back beyond the 1970s.
We know how people work, in societies, at this broad-stroke level. This level of pedantry gets us nowhere.
No it isn't. Mine is an asumption that "white" was just a color before we understood what light is, which doesn't happen until centuries later. Searching for ways to produce "the whitest paint" is unrealisric given that we are talking about objects that reflect invisible light here. Not "white" the color. And there is also a difference between using something and creating something for that purpose. Saying that scientists are now searching for the whitest paint does not imply that nobody was using white paint before.
>This level of pedantry gets us nowhere.
It gets us to the question of whether ancient societies looked for ways to produce paint that reflect more light in order to prevent heat absoption which is what has been hapening since at least 1970.
Light and color weren't scientific concepts until basically Newton. And then you needed significant advances in chemistry, optics etc. to even begin measuring and thinking about such mundane things as application of color to house exteriors.
Yet, any child knows that stepping on black asphalt burns your feet. The conclusion that "less dark means less heat" is trivial. I think it's odd that people think so little of the members past civilizations, with brains no different than ours.