The possibility of pre-human civilizations on earth?

Why would you assume that their civilization would require the bits and pieces that ours does? Maybe they had a system based on biodegradable material. And 65 million years is a long time. Fossils are rock. And rock tends to last a long time. But things that we make that we think are durable, throw in a little acid rain, 65 million years of weathering and corrosion and oxidation, and I bet those durable bits don't look quite like what they originally did.And how quickly has human civilization arisen to the point of having technology and cities. Amazingly quick in the grand scheme of things. So this intelligent dino civilization could easily follow the same path and in geologic time be so minute as to be un-noticeable by our crude methodolgies. Can we go back 65 million years and tease out a thousand-year-span for close inspection? Can we know with certainty what was going on 65,001,000 years ago?~~clpMINI

You bring up several good points.The one I'd like to address also relates to the last thing I mentioned in my prior post.Most folk make the assumption that intellegence = our modern human society and technology. I wonder if that is appropriate.What we see in the fossil record is pretty much a grab bag, bits and pieces, some of this and some of that. But once we move into the era of conventional MANKIND, one of the big things we find are those leftovers of technology. Much of what we know about early Homo is not based on fossil bones, but rather the evidence from their activities. We find animal bones broken in a way that is other than natural wear and tear. We find tools, shaped rocks as an example, or rocks showing wear different than what nature would produce, remains of fire pits, collections of bones of diffrerent species that would not normally be found together. We find other such indicators like burial with objects or systematic arrangements.All of these things are indirect indicators. Marks left on bones by a predators teeth are different than those made by a sharpened rock. The remains of a firepit are different than those caused by a wild fire. A formal burial leaves different evidence than an accidental one.If there had been a prior technological society then we should find similar indicators.But there is also the possibility that there was, at some time, an Intellegent NON technological society. The question then becomes, "What indicators would such a society leave?"This message has been edited by jar, 10-05-2005 01:55 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So I would guess that our best course of action would be to study dolphins. Thought universally to be highly intelligent, and certain specialists in the field of intelligent life (Douglas Adams) have theorized that dolphins may even be smarter than man.So, highly intelligent, non-technological dolphins exist today...do they leave any indication of their activities?I would conjecture that the development of technology was not only an offspring of higher mental ability, but also of limited phyical attributes.A more physically gifted intelligent being may not require and therefore would not produce all the techological whistles and bells that we need today.

That was pretty much the postulate of my History. I imagined a critter with telepahy, telekensis and teleportation capability. Would they leave evidence and would we even recognize them as intellegent if we met them?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Looks like the topic is moving into the direction again that I was envisaging. One of the more important questions is whether development of technology is a given in case of intelligent creatures. If it is not, then the possibility that previous intelligent species existed without leaving a trace, becomes bigger. But the question becomes harder to answer.But personally I think technology and intelligence go hand-in-hand and amplify each other. Such that intelligence beyond a certain threshold, will inevitably produce tools. And handling these tools will then start to amplify the intelligence. So it inevitably leads to more technology.That would also mean that physical limitations like having no hands and living in water, would maybe prevent species from passing that "intelligence threshold".The central idea might be that, in order to be able to AFFORD spending time on analyzing problems on a deeper level, we somehow have to make fulfilment of basic needs as trivial as possible. Look at typical animals: they (have to) concentrate most of their energy on acquiring food, keeping warm.. etc. Using tools and technology is the best way to spend less time and energy on the trivial needs, and invest the spare time&energy in the self-amplifying process.