. No justifications of "The Greeks did it this way in 300AD" or "the Romans had this in 300BC" unless it was still being done by 700 AD. It also means nothing that was invented in 1585, let alone 1985. And even if it occurred in 300 AD and then again in 1800 AD, if it didn't happen during 700-1300, then it's out. So no Roman war chariots.
The problem here is that many things that people might saw were in ancient times and then resurrected in say the enlightenment period were still present through out the gap in between in Europe. They would however be far less prominent and so the over "feel" that most people who don't specifically study such history would have was they were somehow absent completely. Nearly all aspects of Greek and Roman culture can either be found to have a direct descendant somewhere in Europe, or to influencing to some degree an organisation or belief. This to me is the true current problem with SMA, where is the cut off. Do we just use background that was extremely common, or are the rarer and more esoteric aspects of European culture also acceptable.
