"Graham Hancock describes his hypothetical lost Ice Age civilisation as possessing 18th-century-equivalent longitude calculation alongside advanced seafaring, astronomy, mathematics, monumental construction and the transmission of specialised knowledge."

Hancock limits the direct 18th-century comparison to longitude calculation and rejects the idea of steam engines, but his wider account also attributes expert navigation, astronomical and mathematical knowledge, building skills, architecture and knowledge transmission to the proposed civilisation and its survivors.