The statement “the prehistoric record contains evidence of enormous and unexpected leaps forwards in science and technology (agriculture, pyramid building writing, and so on). These leaps are evidence of the introduction of such innovations by extra terrestrial aliens” is fundamentally flaws for a number of reasons, even putting aside the tremendous logical leap from “there were huge leaps forward in technology” to “this is evidence of aliens.” At its core, this statement can be broken down to two explicit and two implicit claims. The explicit claims are one, there were enormous leaps forward in science and technology in the prehistoric past, and two, these leaps forward were unexpected and there is no evidence of build-up to them. The first claim is true – humanity, throughout the prehistoric past, made fantastical advances in technology and apparent understanding of the natural world. However, the idea that these leaps were sudden or unexpected is patently false. Development of agriculture, pyramid building, and even writing is well documented and pretty gradual. Our ancestors didn’t settle down and form crop-economies out of the blue – they gradually and nonlinearly transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a slash-and-burn type of migratory farming, incorporating bits of pastoralism and horticulture along the way. We know this because of the well documented archaeology done on it and also the fact that we have watched how different groups today adapt their mode of acquiring food and resources to changes in the environment. If it happens now, why couldn’t it happen back then?

The flaws in the explicit claims seem to just be a willful ignorance on the part of von Daniken and his peers. The implicit claim, on the other hand, are a little more sinister. Underlying the assumptions of the ancient astronauts hypothesis is the belief that the indigigenous creators of agriculture, writing, the pyramids, etc, were incapable of their feats given their level of “advancement” or technology. This is simply not true. Not only is the manner that they accomplished the advances they did explained within historical and prehistoric record, not only is it demonstrable today using only the technology our ancestors would of had, but it betrays the inherent racism of ancient alien claims. The idea that indigenous inventions and accomplishments could not have been created by “primitives.” Using deductive methods, we can see that if it is possible for modern day humans to create technology like the ancients with the same tools, it stands to reason the ancients would also have been able to figure it out. But that is insufficient for von Daniken and his kin.

Using a specific example, the Saqqara bird, we can see that pseudoarchaeologists and ancient aliens theorists continually avoid easy, demonstrable answers in favor of ideas that confirm their underlying (racist) assumptions. The ancient astronaut believers point to the saqqara bird as evidence of alien interaction with early humans because of its aerodynamic structure. Early humans, they argue, couldn’t possibly have understood the principles of aerodynamics well enough to create the saqqara bird. Therefore, the influence must have been more than a bird, but a flying craft. In saying this, ancient astronaut believers ignore one crucial, well documented fact – many of our principles of aerodynamics come from observing birds, because in order to fly efficiently birds have evolved to be aerodynamic. Therefore, not only could aerodynamic principles be deduced from watching birds glide, but any depiction of a bird will inevitably end up demonstrating some aerodynamic principles in that it is depicting an aerodynamic creature. Even Leonardo Da Vinci used his observations of birds to attempt to build flying machines. There are not only simpler explanations than “aliens helped” but in fact no way of distinguishing, even assuming aliens DID indeed come, the introduction of principles of aerodynamics by observing how a culture depicts other aerodynamic creatures.