Yes, knowledge can be transmitted orally, but it's not as reliable because the record depends on memory, and human memory is creative. Also, it's not just writing that made the difference, but mass printing, which facilitated modern science. Science was foreshadowed in parts of the ancient world, such as Greek philosophy, Babylonian astronomy, and Egyptian architecture. But the kind of knowledge that threatened our sense of belonging, and thus the kind that shocked us out of many of our childish conceits emerged mainly in the modern period. That accumulation of knowledge had various causes, of course, but a crucial one was the easy availability of a written record that anyone could check across the generations.

Would you say the ancients faced the same problem of alienation as moderns, or that we're completely in the dark and can't draw any reasonable conjectures on the matter?