Ancient Alien Influence on Human Civilization

I just finished reading the books "Chariots of the Gods".I bought the book after watching the first episode of the Ancient Alliens series on the history channel . I was fascinated but reluctant to buy into the notion that prehistoric humans did not develop their own arts and technologies, but rather were taught art and science by visitors from outer space(extra-terrestrials). To be honest, I do find it implausible that some people believe the ancient astronaut theory. I started watching the series around December of 2010 and posted my initial thoughts and opinions about the series....here . My historical knowledge of many of the civilizations is very limited. I didn't know about many of them prior to watching the series.

In as much as I am open to "new ideas" , I find it hard to believe that our ancient ancestors memories were so much worse than ours that they could not remember these "alien visitations" well enough to properly preserve an accurate account of the visitations. A sane person can't possibly believe that ancient myths and religious stories are the imperfect recollection of ancient astronauts recorded by ancient priests. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary that prehistoric humans were quite intelligent and resourceful.

However, I am not disputing the possibility that visitors from outer space might have visited earth thousands of years ago and might have communicated with our ancestors.I mean, the fact that a group of people are trying to figure out a phenomenon that has gone unexplained for generations is of itself commendable, but it seems more likely that prehistoric humans themselves were responsible for their own arts, technology and culture.

I honestly do not think anyone, no matter how intelligent he/she is can confidently say that Aliens did visit or did not visit.It is a guessing game and sure we can offer our opinions as to why we feel one way or the other, but the extra terrestrial phenomenon is it too intricate and complex for any human being to make a definitive statements or theorize about....