Because of the saturation in the teaching of "millions of years" in our culture the resulting "Evolutionary Mindset" causes us to consider those who came before us as less intelligent. The farther back we go, the less intelligent we consider people to have been. But if we're to take God's Word on the matter, it's reasonable to conclude the opposite. The first people who existed must have been perhaps the most intelligent, and degeneration in intelligence has occurred since. The great advantage we have today is not intelligence, but accumulation of knowledge.
Consider what's been discovered about the accomplishments of ancient cultures:
Brain surgery Creation, 23(4) Sep-Nov 2001 p.7 Incans
Dentistry Creation, 23(4) Sep-Nov 2001 p.7
High quality steel Creation, 23(3) Jun-Aug 2001 p.9
Astronomical calculations Creation, 23(3) Jun-Aug 2001 p.9
Mayans -Venus phases calculated to 1/400th of a second.
Pyramid Builders used kites to lift stone
Creation 24(2) Mar-May 2002 p7
New Scientist 27Oct01,p.43
Neolithic home builders were engineers
Creation 24(2) Mar-May 2002 p.8
The Times www.thetimes.co.uk 26 Sep01
Neandertal Super Glue
Neandertals glued their wooden axe handles to flint knives by a super-strong glue made from birch pitch that
would be difficult for even modern manufacturing plants to duplicate.
Creation 24(3) Jun-Aug 2002 p.7
Arcitectural genius -Incas:Machupichu
Moody videotape: Empty Cities.
Astronomical calculator -Ancient Greeks -approximately 0 BC Called Antikythera Mechanism
“Gateway to the Sun” temple in Mexico
Carved out of a single block of volcanic rock that weighed 100 tons which was moved and set in place.
Roman temple in Lebanon
stands on a single foundation stone weighing more than 2000 tons.
We don't have the technology to move that today by any practical method.
(From: an Answers In Genesis (AIG) e-mail and
Ancient
Man and Intelligence: Were People Originally Dumb Brutes or Brilliant?, on the AIG web site.)