The whole 'concentrated knowledge of the Ancients' line never made much sense to me. I don't think it is supposed to be taken literally. I mean, they condense this stuff in Mako Reactors.

Far more likely is that through contact with the materia it enables you to make a connection with the planet that the Ancients would have understood how to do directly. In this way you are using a simple object as a stand in for a larger body of knowledge.