Quote:
Originally Posted by parallaxicality
I didn't mean that it was impossible, just that intelligence would make it less likely. There are plenty of Homo Sapiens specimens but then they only fossilised relatively recently, so there is some bias in the sample. Multiply the time frame 30-fold, and the number of specimins would be far less.
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Check out the ruins of and human remains in Pompeii and Herculaneum, two of the most civilized cities in the ancient world, and based on their architecture and artwork, which contained some of the most well-educated, if not most intelligent. These might not qualify as "fossils" per se, but if the pyroclastic flow had been mostly mud instead of ash, they certainly would have wound up as such.
Animals don't have to be stupid to get fossilized. They die where they die. If it happens to be in areas which are routinely covered by layers of mud, which then go through a sedimentary rock formation cycle, you get some fossils.
I expect that the areas in and around New Orleans over the next tens of thousands of years, or however long it takes the Mississippi mud to become sandstone, will yield some very nice homo sapiens sapiens fossils.