Also, each generation builds on the next. Humans until recently didn’t live to 80+, and it’s not like every 80-year-old is out there in the same technology-creating capacity as he or she maybe was in his 40’s to 60’s.
Modern agriculture and literature have been great feats.
Not in chronological order, but: Housing, farming, electricity, heating and cooling, sewage systems, fire codes, governments, medicine, antibiotics, outer space travel, horse and buggies, cars, roads, trains, airplanes… technology builds upon itself, and sometimes replaces itself… evolution of technology is relevant here
Agriculture took time to domesticate land and animals.
For most of these years, populations were smaller and more remote. Globalization has allowed us to communicate broadly and share our technological advances, or copy them.
Anyway… my point is that you’re expecting a lot from humanity when people were struggling to survive… and most of their lives, many people were living under some ruler and invested their resources in not getting killed, killing, family for the sake of survival, and what you might consider more mundane affairs…