There were probably multiple civilizations of "ancient builders"

[winged hawk]

The "ancient builders" have many different structures located in different biomes, in very different styles. This leads me to conclude that there were multiple of these ancient civilizations.

Oldest Builders- These builders are the oldest by far, and did not become undead, so old that their bodies would be far too decayed. Their ancient structures are so old that they have become burried by the natural rising of the ground from creatures dying over time. We know very little about them. They may have also made the ocean ruins, as the materials are similar to those in trail ruins, and have the same suspicious gravel.

Ancient Builders- This civilization is the one which built the ocean monuments and piglin bastions, and were the most advanced of the builders. The piglins found their old mines and forges, and took shelter from the heat, never meeting the creators of the structures. Prismarine is an unusually resilient and entirely artificial, and as a result, did not decay, while the same cannot eb said for the jungle temples. The temples became heavily overgrown, and their smooth stone and bricks cracked overtime into something more similar to cobblestone. The redstone in their structures survived only by virtue of being burried inside the walls of the structures.

"Recent" civilization- These builders made the desert temples and posibly igloos and shipwreks. They used large ships to try and explore the old ocean monuments, but at their time, the guardians were still extremely powerful, while in the modern day, the guardians have somewhat degraded. I think they made the desert temples, because the temples have working redstone machinery blatantly out in the open, made of wood. TNT in real life can decay over time to my understanding, an the temples contain it.

continued in a comment to go further than character limit:

The ancient cities were built by the first civilization, being kept intact by being in giant caves. The 'ancient builders are the skeletons, almost completely decomposed, yet still able to wield their bows, crafted from jungle wood and spider silk. The "recent civilization" are the zombies and husks, not quite as decayed, but still most definitely undead. The vexes and allays might be the "oldest builders", though I am not certain on this.

[vernal sun]

I think it is possible for their to have been generations of civilizations but I think it is equally likely that they all existed at the same time. No block besides corals and copper change over time so we can't really use blocks to date anything.

I also don't agree with your order of these hypothetical civilizations. I think this is a more realistic order, assuming that there are even generations.

First Builders: This builder built the trail ruins and other structures covered by blocks. The evidence for this is that in real life, different layers of soil can cover different generations.

Old Builders: This civilization built the desert temples, jungle temples and possibly the ocean monuments. The evidence for this is that these temples are more complex than the trail ruins and are both the desert temples and ocean monuments are based on Middle Eastern builds (pyramids and ziggurats) which implies a cultural link.

Explorers: This civilizations built the bastions, ruined portals and strongholds. My evidence for this is that interdimensional travel is way more advanced than the simple buildings shown in past generations.

Last Builders: This civilization built the ship wrecks. The evidence for this is that the ships are still mostly intact despite being under water.

Current Civilization: These are the villagers. They built the villages, igloos, woodland mansion, and pillager outposts. My evidence for this is that people still live in these buildings.

[winged hawk]

The mansions and outposts were canonically built by illagers.

I feel like which civilization specifically built what requires more thought than I put into it. I don't think either of pur orders are completely right, so I'll put more thought into it at dome point, but some point is not now.

[tawny moon]

Are the illagers and villagers an entirely different species though? I could maybe see them being a different "race" because they have different skin color, but they seem to speak the same "language" implying they were at least at one point one and the same.

[supple grotto]

Aren't illagers just break-off groups of villagers? Also personally I always thought their skin color was so pale compared to villagers cuz they live in dark mansions and probably dont get enough vitamin d as a result

[tawny moon]

Yeah that's what I mean, but in one of the spinoff games you'll just see pale villagers.

[warped star]

I'm loving the discussion here. I think the armor trims and sherds can help organize things. there's also legends to consider; with the similarities between the goodie-two-shoes villagers and the pottery loot tables, we may know more than we think we do about that particular era. how many eras there are? I dunno. i think you all have a good start though.

[supple grotto]

i think not only were there different eras of history in Minecraft's lore but also different nations and civilizations

mainly because a) the world is massive and keeping communication and culture on such a large scale would be practically impossible and b) we already know of a species whose civilization is split into different townships or states - the villagers

the illagers might not even be a single group, maybe they're separate militias that operate independently of each other with mansions as their centres

maybe the people that built the trail ruins were the beginning of civilization, different small groups in a sort of bronze age. Later, the different Temple societies came, worshipping diverse pantheons of gods and constructing massive temples in their honor. Much later came the imperialist and expansionist states, using massive ships to explore and conquer the world, much like humans did in the renaissance and subsequent age of sail. And now, the villagers might be current civilization, splintered townships fighting for survival as well as battling the break-off militias of illagers

i dont want to make it follow a completely exact timeline to Earth's but i think the similarities between the civilizations of the ancient builders and the historical civilizations of humanity are too noticeable to ignore

[coral sedge]

Factually true, in Minecraft Dungeons there are different rivalring illager tribes

[coral sedge]

More like iron age trail ruins since they have blast furnaces

[warped star]

another thing to consider is that minecraft's technological progression tree seems to have gone in reverse compared to ... shall we say academic history.

where it's ludicrously advanced early on and less and less til the modern day of villagers and their secret owners hiding in the shadows.

[coral sedge]

wdym by secret owners

[warped star]

the illagers. sorry, that's my personal theory and not related to the discussion at hand.

that being the technology, another core pillar to build an idea from.

the trail ruins civilization HAD crazy iron powers, but CHOSE to use wooden hoes. that's a want that speaks of a culture, instead of some confusion with our own story of time.

[coral sedge]

More likely due to wars and external events

for example the piglins

[warped star]

what about those external events? you implying something like a flood to raise the oceans above those ruins and a volcano to ash the snow into very quick layers of sediment buildup over the trail ruins?

'cause yeah, i guess war is a pretty obvious destroyer of tech/knowledge

[coral sedge]

Earthquakes and meteorites like this

[warped star]

oh my. that is quite a fitting theory. would certainly cause both of the civilizations to fail and even give birth to a boating peoples after. bravo.

[coral sedge]

thats a theory of the server too. The villagers were having trouble with the undead kingdom, so they moved underwater, the meteorite hit them and then undead took advantage of this crisis and the villagers were forced to go out back on land.

Also this pic might help for the lore of this thread

[warped star]

oh, interesting.

[supple grotto]

I dunno I don't know anything about Dungeons and kinda just based on vanilla mc, imo the villagers are maybe just a result of the zombie plague, it basically meaning that society splintered into tiny groups that were all kinda quarantine zones of the plague maybe

Maybe as the zombie plague hit the builders, their society became more and more divided as people tried to escape major cities to avoid the plague, eventually leaving all large population centres abandoned and the only remnants of civilization left being villages of people who managed to escape before the plague broke out, now trying to do their best to survive and keep a low profile.

I do imagine there were once large cities of ancient builders that have now simply decayed entirely

Maybe the collapse of the ancient builders was so long ago that society simply decayed and technologies were lost, leading to the now very primitive villagers

We don't actually know how long this calamity happened, but it easily couldve been thousands of years ago

Whatever is left in the villagers of their once great civilization is unrecognizable

Now, the villagers being even less able to rebuild their once great civilization as the splintering militias of illagers basically don't give the villagers enough time to progress societally, as well as keeping their numbers down low enough as to where they can simply not do the feats they once could

This does assume villagers are primitive, degraded builders

Which is a personal theory of mine as well

They're just what's left of the old world

Basically in my mind Minecraft is a sort of post-post zombie apocalypse, the villagers being the descendants of the survivors of said apocalypse and now being so degraded they can't really ever rebuild