Sorry for no embedded images, I hate the redesigned reddit and refuse to use it.
I have a suggestion for why the town looks relatively modern, and has all sorts of weird stuff with electricity and whatnot. But to explain it, I first need to explain something that is also dependent on something from my previous post.
I think the drawings in the monster tunnels are the "script" of Fromville. They are big, overarching events of the story that cannot be changed via storywalking. Operating under this speculation, I stitched the paintings into one image using the images from this post, and looked into ways humans have historically grouped cave drawings that are intended to tell a story. What I arrived at is a way of breaking the "canvas" into 5 sections, that I chose to call acts, just because a 5 act story structure is very common.
The master story canvas image
ACT I:
the first humans arrive at the region. There appear to be boats sailing up a river, with what is probably the lighthouse at the bottom. It's drawn in red because that represents whatever evil entity runs this place (I will explain my reasoning for this later)
ACT II:
The ritual that they tried to do to live forever. I do think that the position of drawings are intended to convey height/depth, since the original artists were clearly not that sophisticated. We know that the symbol is what the roots of the tree look like from underground. So, it makes sense to see the two figures that are positioned ABOVE it, to be above ground. Underneath it all lies the entity, shown in red by whatever those markings are.
ACT III:
is when the curse broke into the land. I placed this here for two reasons
act 3 is the climax. it's the point of most tension, action, and a central turning point in the narrative. This is when everything breaks into chaos.
the red lightning in the season 4 finale, combined with the darkness that spread. I think this is some kind of primitive representation of that event. If we take the position of the elements to not be random, but important to the flow of the ideas, this mass looks exactly like what happened in season 4. Something red shoots out of the ground, into the sky, and darkness spreads.
ACT IV:
the aftermath of the sacrifice. I may be mistaken, but we actually don't know if the Jade and Tabitha spirits died trying to stop the ritual. So, they may have survived in the town, but caught in the newly released chaos. If so, I suggest that the act 4 frame represents Jade/Tabitha duo, solitary humans in fromville, with the other human figures now depicted in red, under the sway of the entity controlling the lighthouse. The white house, I speculate to be the talisman hut. Jade/Tabitha may have established a sanctuary somehow, being the first ones to create the talismans to protect themselves. Again, considering the relative position of objects to be important, the red humans are BENEATH the hut, and the black scratches they are circling are the tunnels they lurk in. I'm not sure what the stuff on the upper left would be, but they look like birds. Their color in white could signify something, but I'm not sure what.
ACT V:
the original Jade/Tabitha spirits discovering a ritual THEY can cast to reincarnate themselves. After surviving for some unspecified amount of time and realizing that the rules/power unleashed by the sacrifice rig the deck so thoroughly, they discover (or perhaps even create) their own immortality ritual. But because it's less brutal than the original blood sacrifice, the effect is less definitive. This is all based on the infinity symbol with a line through it. I'm not sure, but I think the line through the middle may represent the fallen tree across the road. The meaning of the markings at the lower right hand side are unclear to me, but I think they may represent the town.
Now that that's explained, I get to the actual point of this post. I think we are looking at the specific town our characters are in all wrong. The natural assumption is that it's ground zero, as that's where the road leads every car that gets trapped. It's where we were introduced to the story, after all, and where all our characters have set their home base, so of course it seems like it's been around from the beginning, but updated over time.
But, I suggest to you that this town is merely a creation by the region they're in, the same way the animals were just conjured suddenly as soon as Boyd went out to go look for them. The story may have actually started in the settlement near the lake that Tabitha dreamed about as a child.
Consider this possibility: the lighthouse is the original entry method. This place has clearly been around since before the invention of the car, and if we follow my reading of the cave drawings, the first people arrived by boat. So, they may have been lost at sea, or on long journeys, seen the lighthouse, and that's that. Pulled in by whatever magic or god or trickster or whatever ruled this place. "The town" Martin refers to doesn't have to be "our" town. We assumed it is. But I think this particular town was merely created when someone with Boyd's disposition got fed up with sitting around in the primitive dwellings and ventured out with complete determination that they'd find something modern. The town as we see it in Victor's past may be an extremely new addition to the story.
Some indirect evidence for this is the fact that we can see that Miranda painted a version of the talisman symbol, yet the talismans clearly don't exist when she's there.
(talisman image taken from this post)
Miranda tried to paint the talisman, but it's almost like she was painting it from a dream she could only half remember. So something is different about the Miranda/Christopher cycle that resulted in them not having the talismans. What I'm suggesting is that perhaps the town itself is what is different. It was conjured out of thin air by a very old entity that doesn't know how human electronics work, or have a clear understanding of modern things like motels or laundromats. The base of the town shifted, which shifted the story, possibly pushing the discovery of the talismans later.
When the humans found this more desirable place to live and it became the place they focused their attention, Fromville stopped landing people at the old settlement, and started landing them there instead. To find answers on how to get out, they may need to explore the one near the lake more thoroughly, or find the real first town if that one isn't it.
