Do you think its possible that there once existed an advanced civilization that could rival modern technology?

the earth is billions of years old. evidence supports that humans (most similar to us on the evolutionary chain) have existed for at least the past 400,000 years. yet in the past few centuries our population has exploded exponentially and we have laid claim to remarkable new technologies. geez in the past 100 years alone we developed fusion/fission weapons,shrunk transistors to microscopic proportions, flew to the moon, and landed robots on mars. so what gives? why now ? i feel like the human species could have done all of this a very long time ago.