Who were the "Old People"? What clues are given in the text that tell us this?
According to david and his dreams, the "Old People" are people that used to exist that were likely technologically advanced but got wiped out. They had buggies that went without horses (cars?) and these fish-shaped things (airplanes?). David also says that there is a mountain that was cut by the old people (mining?).
I think that these "Old People" were people that are probably similar to us today but they all died and civilizations started all over again (technology-wise).
Some clues that are given in the text that tells us who the "old people" are, is that they were a bit more technology-advanced. We know this because of from some of the things they have left behind from their time. They have left these items in the "bad lands". One of the captains had "brought back a number of objects including gold and silver and copper ornaments, and cargo of spices to prove it" (61).
Like Angie and Mohommad have said, the "old people" are people that were on earth before The people of Waknuk, and that were more technology-advanced. They are referred to in the book as the "true image of God" and that is what the people of Waknuk are trying to achieve. Like Moe said, good clues that they were more technology-advanced were that in David's dream, the buggies had no horses, bird like things in the sky etc. These items all resemble technology that we have today such as cars and planes. therefor I think that the "old people" were much like us, with cars and planes, like modern civilization.
According to the stories from people in David's life, the old people are the people who lived before David's time. The people of Waknuk really look up to these people because, as Kendra said, they were the "true image of God". It also seems that the "old people" were much further ahead technologically. As David sees in his dreams, the "old people" had a whole different way of going about things. They had "shiny fish-shaped things that certainly were not birds" (5) flying in the sky, hints that they had airplanes. As Kendra also said, the old people resemble us and the way we live today.
I think that the old people were the living society as it is now, us. In the book, Uncle Axel sails around and sees these large mutated forest of extremely large grass and strange creatures, this would be caused by nuclear radiation. I think that this is what life would be like if America and the USSR had actually started throwing nukes around during the Cold War. The world would be sent into a nuclear winter and most life would cease to exist. Davids dream describes what life is like now, the fish shaped things in the air could be airplanes, the horseless carts would be cars.
The "old people" were people who were considered to be the "true image of god". The people of Waknuk looked up to these people tremendously because they were thought to be the "true image of god" and the people wanted to be like them because of thier belief in god. They were a lot more technologically advanced, having "shiny fish shaped things that were certainly not birds" (5)flying in the sky and even "the traffic in the streets was strange" (5) and "the buildings" (5) too. This shows that there were cars, and planes and things that are modern to us now.
The Old People are the people who lived before Tribulation. They lived in a higher society that they somehow destroyed. The clues are the things leftover from that time, such as the bricks that were used to build David’s home, and the railroad tracks that David and Sophie play near. David’s dream of lights and flying machines might also be a dream of the past.
In the book, it mentions "Old people" usually. The "old people" were who lived in the world before the Amotic bomb(Tribulation) occured. They had fantastic skills especially in technical way. In the novel, it mentions manythings such as railroad that the "old people" created before the Tribulation.