There’s a massive survivorship bias in the historical record that heavily weights the perspectives of wealthy and literate classes. We also just have much richer records of population centers in complex empires that keep detailed tax and judicial records than populations in more loosely governed areas.

The archaeological record is also heavily biased towards things made out of non-perishable materials (e.g. ceramics and stone last while wood, textiles, and paper don’t).

So basically, we can create a simulacrum of the parts of the past that have survived through to today but it would probably lack verisimilitude for anyone who was actually there.