What if we aren't the first technologically advanced society?

[todofwar]

So, without getting too ancient anliensy, what evidence could be expected if there was another civilization as advanced as ours sometime in Earth's history? Our window would exclude the early bombardment, obviously, but conceivably the dinosaurs had enough time evolutionarily to spit out a species capable of building spacecraft, and I think that the fossil record has enough holes for one species to slip through. And of course homo sapiens have been around for a long time, most of that time we assume we were just cavemen. But what if there was a civ that rose and destroyed itself? 

I'd say the latter is less likely, we should see some kind of evidence for it. But the former? The continents don't even look the same as they did during the triassic, surely that's enough time for most evidence of civilization to be erased. If they had launched sattelites, would we have found them or could there be some small ones hanging out? If it's impossible for us to miss one, how long until all our satellites' orbits decay and they fall back to Earth?

[DDE]

Well, we can pretty much exclude another Homo sapiens civilization unless we assume a stupendous degree of cover-up. Conspirologists are prone to imbuing The Man with incredible skill of erasing memories and picking up all the cigarette butts.

As to dinosaurs, it's just doubtful that they in fact could. They seem to have lacked the sheer bio-energetics needed to run the requisite neural machinery. No, we wouldn't find their society, but we aren't seeing any significant evolutionary tendency that could lead to a sentient species; at our current level of insight, we'd expect to see clearer evidence of "sauroprimates".

Edited July 4, 2016 by DDE

[Nibb31]

Assuming that they didn't get past the neolithic (in which any evidence would be glaringly obvious), we would still find fossil traces of tools or clothing or any other changes to their environment or habitat.

Another possibility is a species that could develop language and communication, but without the ability to manipulate its environment. Like dolphins or whales, they could develop a strong oral culture, possibly richer than ours, but without opposable thumbs or any manipulator organs, they could not develop any technology.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Nibb31

[Green Baron]

One word: nonsense (had repurposed bovine waste at first).

Like those dinosaurs in startrek? Sorry, that's 3rd class afternoon entertainment (though i watched it too). Dinosaurs never had a brain capable of such a thing. There are no remnants of another civilization. The fossil record is quite continuous and the development is conclusive and coherent.

Continents didn't look the same but the development of the wilson cycles from precambrian to today are quite well understood and comprehensible, see eg. scotese's website from the early 2000's. And: continental crust lasts forever, is not subducted. So traces would have been preserved, macroscopic and e. g. in isotopes. We e.g. have printed isotopes until the end of the planet with our atomic tests and accidents.

Pls. get a decent book on vertebrae evolution, afterwards you'll shake your head about your own question, really. I know this is close to an offence, but let me give you a comparison: me in a hospital looking at a guy with a cut finger and asking the doctor wether that guy is going to die. The doctor would probably throw me out.

 

And, mods, please ! Would someone move this in the lounge and out of science & spaceflight ?

 

Sorry for being so rude.

 

Clear answer: if there had been a civilazation we would see it in the record. Fullstop.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Green Baron

[TwinKerbal]

I'm pretty sure we are the first technologically advanced society. 

On the other hand, there may be species in the universe out there waiting for us. 

[Scotius]

Dinosaur civilisation - no. No way. Most advanced "intellectually" dinosaurs were dromaeosaurids (raptors) - they left enough fossil record for us to have pretty good idea how their brains looked. In short, Troodont - considered the very smartest dinosaur found so far was comparable to a dog in terms of intelligence. Their bigger cousins - allosaurids, tyrannosaurids, abelisaurids etc. were unquestioned masters at killing and eating. Their enormous heads were instruments of just that, not for housing a big and delicate brain. Brains of herbivorous dinosaurs were even smaller and less complicated.

Advanced human civilisation pre-dating ours? No. They would leave traces impossible to miss. Non-corroding metals, ceramics, glass, plastics - all would remain, and we would find it. Especially in places where we too would dig extensively - like mineral rich areas or terrain well suited for settlement and agriculture.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Scotius

[Bill Phil]

4 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Dinosaur civilisation - no. No way. Most advanced "intellectually" dinosaurs were dromaeosaurids (raptors) - they left enough fossil record for us to have pretty good idea how their brains looked. In short, Troodont - considered the very smartest dinosaur found so far was comparable to a dog in terms of intelligence. Their bigger cousins - allosaurids, tyrannosaurids, abelisaurids etc. were unquestioned masters at killing and eating. Their enormous heads were instruments of just that, not for housing a big and delicate brain. Brains of herbivorous dinosaurs were even smaller and less complicated.

Advanced human civilisation pre-dating ours? No. They would leave traces impossible to miss. Non-corroding metals, ceramics, glass, plastics - all would remain, and we would find it. Especially in places where we too would dig extensively - like mineral rich areas or terrain well suited for settlement and agriculture.

Well, they might've advanced to the point of the Classical Era. We only know about Carthage because there were other empires that had records of them. It might be possible that something of that advancement wouldn't survive from certain cataclysms, considering we don't even know where, exactly, Carthage is.

[Scotius]

Sure we do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage

Exact localisation and even a reconstructed map of the ancient city. Maybe you were thinking about Atlantis? In this case...

[PB666]

One word, really:

no 

[insert_name]

I think the point of this thread is more what would we see if there was a technological civilization before us, not asking if there was one.

[Bill Phil]

34 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Sure we do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage

Exact localisation and even a reconstructed map of the ancient city. Maybe you were thinking about Atlantis? In this case...

No. There was a city that was completely destroyed by some ancient power, and we only know if that particular city because of the bureaucracy that the power had. Maybe it wasn't Carthage, but the point still stands.

[Wjolcz]

"The Atlantis didn's sink. It lifted off."

Been reading about the Black Knight satellite recently, ey? Anyway, we would know. We are not that blind. We have radars that can track satellites, we would see the change in the atmospheric composition and there would be buildings. A lot of them. A civilization as large as ours would leave TONS of things (including fossilised bones).

[Vanamonde]

OP merely posed a discussion question. No need to get angry about it. And it involves science, right enough, so this is a good spot for it. 

[RainDreamer]

Trash. The first thing we will find from a civilization that is as advanced as ours is trash. The more advanced a civilization, the more energy consumption; the more energy consumption, the more waste are generated in all forms.

The legacy our civilization leaving behind might be layers and layers of trash, underground, and even in space.

[PB666]

Trash, freeways, foundations of skyscrapers, quarries, megaweapons (e.g structures like wwii germany left behind), waterways, canals, megaliths of varoius cultures, 

As one paleoanthropologist put it, humans are the most exploitive, manipulative, resource using intensive species on the planet. Even the most primarive neolithic societies have left evidence behind, lkb, longhouses, cairns, la hoguette, wavy-line, dotted wavy-line, fukui cave, oyster middens with entomb remains, both in europe, new world and japan, blombos cave . . . . . . . . (several pages of examples of rediscovered artifacts). . . . . . . . . 

Not mad, the answer is just no, its highly improbable for a culture as advanced and globally populus to exist without leaving rather notable archaological evidence. 

 

[todofwar]

4 hours ago, insert_name said:

I think the point of this thread is more what would we see if there was a technological civilization before us, not asking if there was one.

This. Let's rephrase, we all die from a super virus. How long until evidence of our civilization is completely wiped? 

5 hours ago, Green Baron said:

One word: nonsense (had repurposed bovine waste at first).

Like those dinosaurs in startrek? Sorry, that's 3rd class afternoon entertainment (though i watched it too). Dinosaurs never had a brain capable of such a thing. There are no remnants of another civilization. The fossil record is quite continuous and the development is conclusive and coherent.

Continents didn't look the same but the development of the wilson cycles from precambrian to today are quite well understood and comprehensible, see eg. scotese's website from the early 2000's. And: continental crust lasts forever, is not subducted. So traces would have been preserved, macroscopic and e. g. in isotopes. We e.g. have printed isotopes until the end of the planet with our atomic tests and accidents.

Pls. get a decent book on vertebrae evolution, afterwards you'll shake your head about your own question, really. I know this is close to an offence, but let me give you a comparison: me in a hospital looking at a guy with a cut finger and asking the doctor wether that guy is going to die. The doctor would probably throw me out.

 

And, mods, please ! Would someone move this in the lounge and out of science & spaceflight ?

 

Sorry for being so rude.

 

Clear answer: if there had been a civilazation we would see it in the record. Fullstop.

I've read plenty on evolution thank you. And no, the fossil record is not complete, far from it. Though it is complete enough for us to fill in many blanks. Think of it this way: we haven't catalogued every extant species, what makes you think we've catalogued the extinct ones? 

This kind of post drives me crazy. I spend all day talking serious science, this is where I come for interesting speculation. Yet some people get so up in arms about anything that's not a perfectly grounded scientific discussion. 

[todofwar]

31 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Trash, freeways, foundations of skyscrapers, quarries, megaweapons (e.g structures like wwii germany left behind), waterways, canals, megaliths of varoius cultures, 

As one paleoanthropologist put it, humans are the most exploitive, manipulative, resource using intensive species on the planet. Even the most primarive neolithic societies have left evidence behind, lkb, longhouses, cairns, la hoguette, wavy-line, dotted wavy-line, fukui cave, oyster middens with entomb remains, both in europe, new world and japan, blombos cave . . . . . . . . (several pages of examples of rediscovered artifacts). . . . . . . . . 

Not mad, the answer is just no, its highly improbable for a culture as advanced and globally populus to exist without leaving rather notable archaological evidence. 

 

But that's all within a few hundred years. Plastic only lasts for thousands, and much of it would ultimately end up underground and converted back to crude. No structure would survive that long either, on the timescale of hundreds of millions of years mountains get worn away. 

I suppose it kind of depends how long the civ lasts. Sure, we can use things like levels of lead to track industrial levels, but that's on the scale of five to ten thousand years. Have we really altered the chemical makeup of the earth so much that it would show up after the record gets compressed? What's our resolution on measuring things like CO2? I have a very hard time buying our ability to break down the record to the level of millenia by millenia.

[kerbiloid]

If there were a tecnologically advanced civilization before modern human, we would have empty depleted quarries instead of rich mineral deposits, full of rusty gear wheels.

So, people then would mine spots of high-concentrated rust instead of natural rocks untouched since early days of the Earth.

Of course, no coal or oil, because they would burn them before us.

5 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Sorry, that's 3rd class afternoon entertainment (though i watched it too).

"Only for research purposes, you see."

[PB666]

17 minutes ago, todofwar said:

But that's all within a few hundred years. Plastic only lasts for thousands, and much of it would ultimately end up underground and converted back to crude. No structure would survive that long either, on the timescale of hundreds of millions of years mountains get worn away. 

I suppose it kind of depends how long the civ lasts. Sure, we can use things like levels of lead to track industrial levels, but that's on the scale of five to ten thousand years. Have we really altered the chemical makeup of the earth so much that it would show up after the record gets compressed? What's our resolution on measuring things like CO2? I have a very hard time buying our ability to break down the record to the level of millenia by millenia.

Polyethylene of the tyoe used for milk cartons can last indefibitely in an anaerobic environmet. Your interstate highway with 8 inch slab proprly buried, easily a few billion years under the right conditions,

Some mountains get worn away others get buried,mit depends whether you end up in an uplift or a sink. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by PB666

[Nibb31]

7 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

No. There was a city that was completely destroyed by some ancient power, and we only know if that particular city because of the bureaucracy that the power had. Maybe it wasn't Carthage, but the point still stands.

Rome attempted to have Carthage erased from the globe after the Punic Wars. However, it's hard to destroy an entire city without leaving any trace at all. The location of Carthage is well known (in Tunis) and you can visit the ruins and see them from Google Earth.

Any advanced civilization would leave some sort of archeological clues behind.

 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Nibb31

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Well, they might've advanced to the point of the Classical Era. We only know about Carthage because there were other empires that had records of them. It might be possible that something of that advancement wouldn't survive from certain cataclysms, considering we don't even know where, exactly, Carthage is.

It might have existed towns before the end of the ice age, fishing makes for larger settlements and the rising water would cover them, no metals as that knowledge would have survived so it would mostly push the date of the oldest town back a couple of thousands year past the one in Turkey.  

 

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, todofwar said:

But that's all within a few hundred years. Plastic only lasts for thousands, and much of it would ultimately end up underground and converted back to crude. No structure would survive that long either, on the timescale of hundreds of millions of years mountains get worn away. 

I suppose it kind of depends how long the civ lasts. Sure, we can use things like levels of lead to track industrial levels, but that's on the scale of five to ten thousand years. Have we really altered the chemical makeup of the earth so much that it would show up after the record gets compressed? What's our resolution on measuring things like CO2? I have a very hard time buying our ability to break down the record to the level of millenia by millenia.

One issue is that lots of our long lasting junk would end up fossilized, its easier for hard to break down stuff and metal even iron breaks down way slower than bone, now take aluminium, ceramic don't break down either. 

Mines would probably be the most obvious, the old mine shafts would be filled by something else pretty quick however this would be very obvious and it would also be an natural place to dig and you find that most of the ore is extracted. 

[Green Baron]

 

It's only links that are missing in the record. The big picture is clear and documented, palaeontologists are no dorks.

"Invention" of the amniotic egg: about 320my before now. From then on, amphibious life was was able to multiply on land, which was as close to mars' surface as to that of today at that time. Before it creeped between shallow water and the barren shores in a landscape of ferns and horsetail. That's the beginning of (edit: vertebrate) evolution on land. 300my, guys !

"Plastic only lasts for 1000s of yrs" is just a statement and most probably wrong. "plastiglomerate" found it's way into sedimentary geology already. Using isotopic signatures (if it's far enough ahead, otherwise other methods apply) one can easily date the forming of its ingredient oil as well as the time of deposit in the surrounding soil, or layers in few hundred my, if someone really wanted to know by then.

Get a book on evolution, guys ! I'd suggest vertebrate, it's easier to understand and not as complicated as invertebrate evolution. The latter being more interesting for palaeontologists cause much more interesting ;-)

Yes, mountains get worn away. They form then sediments, sediments can become metamorphic rocks. And all that tells a lot about the sequences and processes that formed landscapes over time.

There is much less room for speculation than you think.

 

Edit: i partly apologize for my rude commentary, but threads like these drive ME crazy cause that kind of speculation makes scientists lifes difficult. They ask themselves what are we doing if noone wants to hear it ? Why are we presenting our findings in museums and exhibitions for the public ? For those in the US: Fields museum in chicago, Smithsonian in washington, New York has a good one, close to the central park, forgot the name.

I can understand K^2's eruption in another thread about physics.

And that's it from me about that. Have a nice one, everybody.

 

Edit: corrected "animal" into "vertebrate" evolution, otherwise someone could heavily pay me back ;-)

 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Green Baron

[Green Baron]

11 hours ago, insert_name said:

I think the point of this thread is more what would we see if there was a technological civilization before us, not asking if there was one.

And that's why it should in the Lounge ...

[Laie]

Of ancient humans we have plenty of stone tools and spear/arrow points but little else besides. Some bits of bones that have been worked on. Later, shards of pottery, remains of stone buildings. With increasing population numbers, ever more refuse pits (though again it's mostly stone, bone & pottery that survives) and graves.

If something "advanced" was around 80MA ago, the picture would be nearly identical, I guess. Stone and pottery are good for millions of years; anything that would destroy these materials would also obliterate all bone.

"A civilization that rose and destroyed itself" should be pretty hard to miss in the fossil record, even if it was 500MA ago.