[Meta] When we say "The Romans thought..." or "In Egypt it was believed..." or the like, do we actually have to understand that as "the X elite thought-"?

The presentation of historical mindsets and beliefs is a common topic here. But, I did have the thought just now that, pretty much all of these guys that we're reading about are the elite, right? There might be exceptions, but by and large, ordinary people in the past weren't literate, and were only slightly less often considered important enough to write about, and even when we do get reported statements from them surely we can't discount a mix of biased reporting and deliberate attempts to play to their (elite) audience's biases.

So, when someone says "The Romans thought..." or "The Medieval French thought...", am I to really understand these are the values of elite Romans or French, and we don't qualify that because the views of hinterland peasants are essentially unknowable from our perspective in 2025? Or do we have sources on what they thought and believed that are as reliable as they are for the elite?