Before that Greece, before that Persia, before that Assyria, before that Babylonia, before that Egypt, before that Sumeria… Sometime before that Cro Magnon Man. The list gets bigger; The Mongols, Timurids and other turkic groups like the Mughals, the Han…
Even specific to the British Isles (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes; then the Vikings; then the Normans (French descendants of Vikings).
In other words all roads don’t lead to Rome, it’s just a thing that humans do.