Take for instance, the Inca or the Aztecs (I know they aren't really that old, relatively speaking). Would they have known about the peoples that had lived in South America before them extending back 200 hundred years, say? 500? 1000? The Aztecs were around from 1300 to 1521 so presumably some Aztec people living in 1521 would have a decent idea of what was going on in the area in 1300 right based on writings and oral histories, etc... But would they have any reliable knowledge about the people living right where they were in, say the 11th century?
I bring up South American civilizations only as an example. I'd be interested to hear about other regions as well...
Thanks in advance!
The oral history of the Australian First Nations (aboriginal culture is not one homogenous monolith) dates back beyond the end of the last ice age.
There are stories told in Queensland that happened on rolling downs that are now home to the Great Barrier Reef
https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010
In my hometown of Melbourne, we are perched on the edge of a wide bay, and in colonial times, they recorded stories identifying submerged islands by name that Aboriginals living 7,000 years after their inundation could point to. They have other stories too that the Aboriginals referred to as happening "when the bay was a kangaroo hunting ground".
Linguists have identified 20 different stories of the sea levels rising at the end of the last ice age from across the continent, both transmitted as mythological Dreamtime stories and as actual honest recounting of things specific people saw.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/
More can be said if anyone wishes to add something, but in the meantime you may be interested in this older thread, Did ancient civilizations have ancient civilizations, which received a couple great answers:
/u/Antiquarianism does an amazing dig through a whole bunch of ancient cultures' understandings of their historical pasts—including various Native American, African, and Mesopotamian groups, but they really do touch across a lot of the globe.
/u/toldinstone addresses what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought they knew about ancient ruins.