Possible, previous human or non-human civilizations alike, our
understanding of the past is flawed, IMHO. I wouldn't pretend to have
real knowledge about the matter, but have read about some archaeological
findings that were reexamined after a long time of their discovery and
acquired a possible new role, a fairly advanced technological one. Like
fragments of ceramic and metals that would be an ancient battery, a
wooden sculpture of a stylish hawk that is said to glide as perfectly as
modern scale planes, and others.
Our knowledge gets thinner as we move into the past. Many things may
happen in 50.000 years - many things may have happened and we may never
know based on how little evidence actually survives such small
(planetary scale here) time span. Just remember anything big enough to
wipe out mankind probably would bring great geological changes too. That
could wipe out coastlines and many important cities and structures.
In low technology areas any metal get re-used as long as possible - the
tools I throw away in recycle bins here in the city would be gladly
forged into other utilities, in other places. Plastics and other
sinthetics are harder to re-use in low tech areas, but burn rather
easily. How long do you think the survivors of some really important
catastrophe would take to dismantle the next abandoned small city?
The kind of technology we have today was possible because lots of
factors were present - and were used by some small number of specific
individuals in the adequate moment. A human society could survive, being
isolated and low tech enough to endure. After a time, they may even
remember the giant waves, or the rains of fire, or how close they were
to disappear. They would probably find unexplainable ruins, signs of
former societies, and maybe even recognize those societies as human. But
do you really think they would understand the difference between our
banks and churches? I don't believe every toolmaker being is guaranteed
to develop space travel - and after the right amount of time even our
space dumpster may get cleaner.
LF
Bob W escreveu:
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
--
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http://alunfoto.blogspot.com
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