Peter wrote: > that one species of dinosaur was. If the same amount of time > elapsed between the rise of a new intelligent creature and > our demise, as between us and the dinosaurs, I doubt enough > would exist of our works to show that we were tool users. In
fossils already exist in association with stone tools. Assuming we haven't already dug them all up, if we were to disappear tomorrow I don't see any great reason why many of the fossils still in the ground shouldn't remain there for the next 65 million years. In addition, some of our artefacts are designed to last a long time. For example, the Hoover Dam is supposed to last as long as the rocks amongst which it is built. There's probably as much chance of our traces remaining for 65 million years as there was of the dinosaurs' traces lasting that long. Luiz wrote: > There are lots of unexplained artifacts from pre-historic ages that > suggest mankind did have a former civilization that vanished in some > global catastrophe, leaving scattered groups with tales of > destruction I'm late into this conversation, but from the gist of it I think people are referring to non-human civilisations. As far as prehistoric human civilisations go, there are some interesting peer-reviewed (as opposed to barking mad lunatic Graham Hancock types) books around - google Richard Rudgley, for example. He is an archaeologist who shows the transition from prehistoric hunter-gatherers to early agriculturalists. There are also many peoples (it might be a bit a a stretch to describe them as civilisations) who were destroyed by natural disasters, or barely scraped through by the skin of their teeth. By coincidence, I happened to be reading some reviews today of books about the Black Death of the 14th century. This event killed something like 30% of the population of the known world, and was described in one of the reviews as the worst natural disaster ever to strike mankind. However, that is probably not true as the Toba explosion about 74,000 years ago, which was the biggest eruption of the last 2 million years, appears to have come close to making humans extinct, reducing the population to fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs. Stephen Oppenheimer pushes this theory very interestingly in a number of his books, including Out Of Eden. Bob > by flood and fire. > We usually regard our achievements as > important, but > if mankind disappeared the next tenants would have little to > remember us. > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Luiz Felipe > Sent: 18 January 2009 23:08 > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: Re: PESO - attempt at B/W conversion > > Peter, I saw "Stan" (a T-Rex fossil) at Disney's Animal > Kingdom and the > folks at the exibition told me how few specimens existed. It's a very > difficult puzzle indeed. > > There are lots of unexplained artifacts from pre-historic ages that > suggest mankind did have a former civilization that vanished in some > global catastrophe, leaving scattered groups with tales of > destruction > by flood and fire. We usually regard our achievements as > important, but > if mankind disappeared the next tenants would have little to > remember us. > > LF > > Peter Alling escreveu: > > On a serious note, most people don't realize how little of > the fossil record actually exists. I think the entire T-Rex > species is known from fewer than 100 individuals with only a > half a dozen considered "nearly complete", representing > several hundred thousand years of the species' existence. > The amount of time that hominids an entire group of mammalian > species have been on earth is less time than the existence of > that one species of dinosaur was. If the same amount of time > elapsed between the rise of a new intelligent creature and > our demise, as between us and the dinosaurs, I doubt enough > would exist of our works to show that we were tool users. In > fact though there are an awful lot of us, I doubt there would > be many surviving fossils, as most of us live in areas not > conducive to fossil formation. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > >> From: AlunFoto <[email protected]> > >> Sent: Jan 17, 2009 3:45 PM > >> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]> > >> Subject: Re: PESO - attempt at B/W conversion > >> > >> 2009/1/17 Peter Alling <[email protected]>: > >> > >>> If birds are related to dinosaurs maybe they did. > >>> Not much would be left of our civilization after a few > million years. > >>> > >> True enough. But since there are fossilised remains of > early hominids > >> like Lucy, then one has to wonder how a previous civilisation of > >> another species could have come and gone without as much > as a trace in > >> the fossil record. > >> > >> Unless, of course, the fossil record is a hoax planted by > the previous > >> civilisation. > >> > >> No, wait! That doesn't hold with the fact that Noah's > flood caused all > >> the fossils. > >> > >> <g, d & r> > >> Jostein > >> > >> -- > >> http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ > >> http://alunfoto.blogspot.com > >> > >> -- > >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > >> [email protected] > >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link > directly above and follow the directions. > >> > > > > > > -- > > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > [email protected] > > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link > directly above and follow the directions. > > > > > > > > -- > Luiz Felipe > luiz.felipe at techmit.com.br > http://techmit.com.br/luizfelipe/ > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly > above and follow the directions. > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
