Excellent article, it reminds me a lot of the work of Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson in that our official history may be 'built on pillars of sand'. Many ancient cultures consistently point to even older , and greater, civilizations that were all destroyed by cataclysm, such as Gunung Padang and Göbekli Tepe. On the geological side incresing evidence is pointing towards and immense and virtually instant catastrophe of the Younger Dryas.
I remain immensely optimistic that our view of human civilization is going to go much deeper into history and break from a purely, slow-and-steady progress view to a more realistic understanding of civilization rise-and-fall throughout history.