Could a dinosaur civilization have existed without leaving any trace? I just started reading a short story called "Hammer and Claw". The story takes place in two places: present day Earth and prehistoric Earth, Moon, Mars as popluated by a species of intelligent dinosaur. Could such a species have evolved and populated the Earth without leaving a footprint, (trace of itself)? Have fun...

I don't know how feasible it is, but Harry Harrison wrote a series of novels on that very subject, although, his books may be considered althernative history. The first is titled West of Eden. IIRC, they were pretty well done.

Ask yourself. Assuming mankind would no longer exist from now on.
Would someone in the future be able to see our traces?
Would it be possible not to see them?

__________________
"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
our animal welfare board and organisation

That could largely depend on exactly how the human race was exterminated.

__________________
In the depths of a mind insane,
Fantasy and reality are the same.

Tell me how to wipe all human traces...

__________________
"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
our animal welfare board and organisation

I would say that 65 or so million years would be pretty effective....

Fossilized bones and even some DNA still remain yet no tools, building remains, or signs of reshaping the land? There's hardened mud flats with preserved tracks where dinosaurs walked by one day. (Here's a July 6th, 2005 article on a footprint found in Alaska that's estimated to be 70 million years old.) There's even fossilized hair, feathers, eggs, eggshells, and complete nests that have been discovered.

Yet no fossilized wooden tools or tool handles, no impressions where a tool was dropped and left an outline. Much less any tools discovered. If oxygen can't get to something, then there's no oxidation. Take the T-Rex tissue found inside the bone for example.

Even if Earth was somehow destroyed, you'd still have to explain all the junk and satellites in orbit around Earth and other spacecraft around the solar system. Not to mention lunar modules on the moon.

with regards

__________________
All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

Sign up to sue the Sun

Even if there is no disaster big enough to destroy the human race, that doesn't necessarily mean a dinosaur civilization isn't a possibility. A dinosaur civilization need not be technical. How about something as advanced as the ancient Egyptians. Wouldn't the remains of such a civilization be completely obliterated by a comet impact and 65 million years of waiting?

__________________
In the depths of a mind insane,
Fantasy and reality are the same.

Certainly if the dino Egypt happened to be in Yucatan...

__________________
Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

If an Egyptian-like civilization existed in one part of the world, then surly in other parts of the world they were building campfires, making axes out of stone, and wearing bead necklaces. Come on! We can find fossilized dinosaur nests. I mean, some bird-brained dinosaur scrapes together a bunch of twigs to make a nest, and 65 million years later we can find it. I think we'd be able to find an axe or a spear or a campfire or something. Certainly we'd find burial sites.

One thing to think about: dinosaurs all seem so well equipped for their environment. They have armor and weapons and huge muscles. They have everything they need. Contrast that with frail, pathetic humans. We have nothing to defend us from predators, no teeth or claws to strike back with. We can't run fast. We can't hide. A baby T-Rex is a killer about 30 seconds after it claws its way out of the egg. Our children are little more than tasty hunks of protein unless we guard them - for ten years or more! Without clothes we either freeze at night or sunburn during the day. Sheesh! We suck! Our ancestors *had* to use their brains to survive. It seems to me that most dinosaurs could survive just fine with only their bodies. They certainly don't have the impetus that our ancestors had to get smart or die.

I would also add that if you look at dinosaur skulls, there is no evidence that any of the species were intelligent enough for a civilization (had big enough brains).

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Not all of them were T-Rex. There were small tender ones as well, what do you think the big toothy ones ate?

__________________
All Moderation in Purple
To report a post (even this one) to the moderation team, click the reporting icon in the upper-right corner of the post:
─────────────────────────────────────────────
◄Rules For Posting To This Board ► ◄Forum FAQs ► ◄ Conspiracy Theory Advice ► ◄ Alternate Theory Advice ►

I am far from an expert, but I suspect there were dinosaurs as smart as many of our current predators - wolves, tigers, etc. They may also had some social interactions, like pack hunting. Some of the small, bird-like ones might have been as smart as birds - but most of the birds are pretty dumb. Even the smart birds (parrots, crows) and the smart predators (wolves) don't form civilizations.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

let's assume that all of the dino species haven't been discovered...let's also assume that there are large epochs of time for which there is no fossil record....of course I don't seriously believe that an intelligent dino civilization existed...but...

but what?

An individual civiliazation, like the Egyptians, can be completely wiped out, but an intelegent species would leave some trace somewhere. Like I said, at the very least you'd find dinosaurs that were burried with some sort of ceremony. You'd also find pottary shards, beads, tools, something.

So what do you mean, "but..." But what? The entire surface of the Earth hasn't been turned over! If there was an intelegent species, sure it might have formed a civilization in one area, and sure that one area may not exist anymore, but that species would have spread out and we'd be finding pre-civilization artifacts elsewhere.

the way to remove all human traces is to let plate tectonics subduct all evidence into the mantle, but that would take far longer than 65 million years. I think that you would need about 400 million to 500 million years and even then, some parts of the Earth's crust would still be around to provide tell-tale signs.

__________________
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

Well, here's a thread about a 2 BILLION year old crater:

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23000

So, it looks like subduction isn't going to do the trick.

what about a small localized group that evolved on a small close invirement
Lets say an island about the size of Great Britain, that now is burry deep under the seabed.

?

__________________
GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

I guess one can't prove that it didn't happen, but IMHO it seems unlikely. Humans and our ancestors having been making stone tools for over 2 million years (reference). Such tools have been found in many parts of the world. It seems hard to imagine intelligent, civilized dinosaurs that just stayed in one spot for their entire existence, and then all traces of them getting erased.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

True, unless where looking for the wrong stuff, tools don't have to be from wood or stone or metal.

__________________
GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

for further speculation, see The Science of Discworld, by . . . er . . . well, the story bits are by Terry Pratchett, but I honestly don't remember who wrote the science bits. still, there is speculation about dinosaur civilization--as well as a lot of other civilizations.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Hey, fun! Okay, you'd need a few "ifs" to make it possible, I think. Let's see . . .

We've never seen a dinosaur with a really big, human-sized braincase. In fact, none of them approach Australiopithicus, IIRC. My favorite probably-smart dinosaurs--favorite from a nice safe distance, mind you!--are the raptors. I like to imagine that they were easily as smart as wolves, but I've never heard that they were even as bright as chimps.

However, dinosaurs are basically really big birds with 'tude, and there are some indications that bird brains are wired a little differently than ours in terms of intelligence. So, if dinosaur brains needed less space to be intelligent in . . .

Second problem: we haven't seen any traces of dinosaur civilization. If it were widespread, I would think we would have, even if it never really got past the stone age. (And imagine the world's reaction if some paleontologist had ever found a chipped obsidian knife, lying there beside the fossilized tracks!)

It's not enough to argue that this civilization might have been limited to a specific area, either, a spot which unfortunately went "glup glup glup" when Pangaea broke up or suffered a Krakatoa explosion. The entire race has to be limited to that area. This may be possible, but it is certainly not a pattern that human civilization followed, and that's the one example we have. So, if an intelligent race stays isolated, and for some reason doesn't spread across the globe . . .

Third, or maybe 2.5. Dinosaurs, as a rule, run toward the biggish. This makes the isolated island theory--it kind of has to be an island, doesn't it?--even harder to swallow. Big critters need room, and you need enough Dino Sapiens to form a breeding population. If you want a sophisticated civilization, even a primitive one, you probably need more. If Dino Sapiens is a predator, he's got to be a pretty small one. (Of course, that might explain why he had to get smart in the first place--gad. Image of dinosaur with a shoe phone, make it go awaaaay . . . 8) ) And he's unlikely to be a real niche-type. Fish-eating predators are problematic because they usually swim or fly, making them really tough to isolate. That leaves herbivores, omnivores, and insectivores. As far as I can tell, dino herbivores tended not to be mensa candidates, and they flat-out didn't have a lot of omnivores; they tended to specialize. (From the data we have, this doesn't make them excellent candidates for sapience, really.) I really like insectivores, especially since I saw my first meerkat (and my mother had to explain that no, I couldn't have one, yes she was sure) but it doesn't tend to be a dino niche. That's where our ancestors got started. So unless we're talking small predator, we don't really have any close examples, which again begs the question of where the fossils went.

In other words, no, I don't think it's likely. But it would've been really cool.

Izunya (edited to change one mention of herbivores to omnivores, which was what I meant)

__________________
Mal: Define "interesting!"
Wash: Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?

- from Serenity

well if they somehow where isolated on an island, they have to be big,
the there pray is smaller , they can be smaller too... reminds me of the mini elephant(sp?)

__________________
GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

It is usually assumed that (pre)human ancestors have been using tools for about 2.5 million years or so. Human religion probably started about 1 million years ago. However there are NO remnants of these small moderately advanced colonies of humans. If you look at the link you provided, it says that the tools predate the known existance of the homo genus. That probably means these tools were made by monkeys. After all, chimps use simple tools. So do dolphines. So do ants. Heck, some species of ants have advanced agriculture (they plant and cultivated fungus, and they have herds of Aphids which they actually MILK if you can believe it). Some of the construct sophisticated traps to lure and then capture huge prey (huge compared to them. Sorta like a group of humans taking down a mammoth. After the capture it they maul it to death).

IIRC in 1 million years the footprints of the Apollo astronauts will be wiped from the moon (barring small impacts in those areas to hasten the destruction of course). How long until the rest of it is covered with dust, or simply ground into chunks too fine to see?

Satellites will not remain in orbit for long periods without constant maintenance.

If I had to guess, I would say that if every human died today in 2 or 3 million years there would be no significant evidence of our existence..... with the possible exception of a few individuals who fell into tar pits or lake beds and were fossilized. Metal rusts, stone breaks, trees rot, plastic biodegrades, and even used putonium will eventually decay into lead. Nothing would be left for anyone to find .

1 more point that I don't think anyone mentioned: Even if there were 1 intelligent species of dinosaur, what are the chances that we have dug up the remains of that particular species? Certainly T. Rex wasn't intelligent, nor was a stegosaurus, or an ankelosaurous (spelling ). These were all just dumb animals. Like cows, or rabbits, or lions. If, 5 million years from now, aliens came to Earth and dug up the remains of a cow, would they then assume that there had been no intelligent life on Earth because a cow is very unintelligent?

__________________
http://boincwapstats.sourceforge.net.../style:2/p.png

I think a point that some of you have missed is:

200 years ago, we didn't know dinosaurs existed (how long have we been excavating remains for? Thousands of years?)

Even once the first dinosaur was discovered it wasn't recognised for a while as an actual 'dinosaur' as we now see it.

We only found out about 'the hobbit' (a close relation to humans that had a 'civilization' of sorts) only last year - and they lived only 18,000 years ago! Just because we have found no evidence definately does not mean that there were no slightly intelligent civilizations of dinosaurs.

Having said that, I don't believe there were any; but claiming that 'we cannot see any traces of them' does not mean that they did not exist by any means.

Will dust completely cover all of the LMs/flags/rovers? What about some of the space craft on Mars. Or the ones in orbit around Mars or the Earth. Or what about the Pioneer/Voyager craft? Will they suddenly 'disappear' altogether in a million years time? I agree that the chances of actually coming across a craft is bleak, but there is still evidence there.

with regards

__________________
All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

Sign up to sue the Sun

for what we know, a cow might be what is seen as very inteligent in the univers, and where just the super inteligent oddball's that make up less than 1%

__________________
GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

I don't particularly agree with you (although I think it could be a possibility) but you make a good point. What are we defining intelligence as? What kind of a 'civilization' are we looking at?

with regards

__________________
All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

Sign up to sue the Sun

The flags on the moon are already gone (from the intensive radiation I believe). The rovers and pieces of the landers left behind will be ground to dust over time by a combo of radation and small impacts (no atmosphere to slow down or vaporize the small meteriods). Nothing we set down on the moon will be around in a few million years.

Anything in orbit will crash or fly off into space long before the stuff on the moon is gone. As for mars landers, I assume erosion will take care of them .

__________________
http://boincwapstats.sourceforge.net.../style:2/p.png

Yeah, but we haven't died just yet, no need to start thinkin' pessimistically here. :P The evidence would be tenuous, but still there....it would be quite a big experiment, but I'm sure they would find something.

Would it? How? What about the things in solar orbit, or does what you're saying only apply to things in orbit around a planet? :-?

with regards

__________________
All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

Sign up to sue the Sun