If all of humanity were to suddenly disappear, and a species with intellectual capabilities similar to humans were to emerge one billion years later, would they be able to discover that humans of the past were beings with comparable intellectual capacities to themselves?
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a million years later probably but not after a billion years
reasons?
Different Anon: after a billion years most everything *inorganic* would just erode or degrade into an unrecognizable mess from such a vast amount of time. It isn't that some Rapper's gold tooth wouldn't still be there, it would be, but it wouldn't be recognizable as a tooth anymore- it would shaped and worn into a completely innocuous shape by weather or pressure from being buried under the earth.
With that said:
>would they be able to discover that humans of the past were beings with comparable intellectual capacities to themselves?
Maybe.
-Plastic doesn't occur naturally and will never degrade into anything 'natural' or 'seemingly natural'. Plastic just breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic. The glass this Anon:
mentions will eventually turn into silica/sand/whatever completely indiscernible from any other sand, but plastic will never do that. In a billion years there 'might' still be plastic bags on the bottom of the ocean.
-If you replace "disappeared" to "died all at once" our fossilized skeletons would be impossible to ignore. The sheer amount of bones left behind by such an auspicious looking animal would be significant and telling.
Except bacteria has evolved to break down plastics. While they do it fairly slowly (much more slowly than the rate at which humans are producing it currently), they still break it down fast enough that all the plastic will be gone given enough time. No part of the planet is ever completely and 100% isolated, even the bottom of the ocean, and bacteria will either colonize down there or the plastic will eventually make its way to the surface.
Same Anon, thought of some more things to add:
-The extensive use of fertilizers, and the pollution we constantly produce, would probably leave a thin, but identifiable, stratum in the dirt. That can't really be mistaken for anything else, or I should say it would be difficult for any species that knows really anything about chemistry, due to all the unique/out of place 'weird' chemical & elemental qualities.
-The domesticated plants and animals that we leave behind would provide insights. They wouldn't be around after a billion years, but they'd have left fossils like everything else- lots of them. I think the banana would be most suspicious given it's global distribution of clones.
-MINES; strip mines, tunnels, would always be a little suspicious. Any that remained would be a dead give away to some intelligent species extracting materials, but even if they eroded or crushed by moving tectonic plates there'd probably be still an "absence" that would need to be explained.
The problem I have with all of these supposedly "unmistakeable" traces is that it implies that no other possible theory for their existence could ever be determined, when scientists do nothing BUT create alternate explanations for obviously unusual phenomena until everything gets ground down into naturalistic paste.
If we found a burial site of an intelligent dinosaur, complete with preserved stone tools, the majority opinion would be "those so-called tools were just shaped as such by erosion, we see what we want to see" and as a result it would only merit mention in /x/ tier articles.
>If we found a burial site of an intelligent dinosaur, complete with preserved stone tools, the majority opinion would be "those so-called tools were just shaped as such by erosion, we see what we want to see" and as a result it would only merit mention in /x/ tier articles.
Nah, I think that's absurd. I think far future sentient beings would see all the changes in strata mineral composition during our time period plus the fact that we're not in a particularly tectonically active time period as proof.
I think I read the very same argument applied to lizard people and atlantis today.
Unfortunately scientist are heavily conditioned by their cultural background, and that establishes a high bar for evidence that challenges preconceptions, and a low bar for anything that reinforces them.
Plastic gets destroyed by UV light, bacteria or heat. I figure it could be preserved forever if its enclosed in underground rock but not at depths where its hot.
ok I'm back but yeah after a million years maybe if they were lucky and tried hard enough they might find some traces of our tech (I assume you're not just talking about human skeletons, right? They will find more than a few of those even after a million years) but as far as "knowing we were advanced and similar to them" I'm not even sure if after a billion years (a thousand times longer!) there would even be any traces left of our nuclear waste (which would be a dead giveaway) as I think in less time then that it all would just turn to lead or something, no expert in that area.
A billion is out of question due tectonic activity, and even a million years is too much for them to get solid evidence, at most hints.
bro what the actual frick are you talking about lol
You don't know shit, frick off.
listen you imbecile, we already have evidence of life 3.5 billion years old, let alone all the fricking dino fossils so far. you are fricking insane if you think there's no evidence of us left by then.
nice selfie. stay in school kids.
I don't think you're going to submerge a whole cybertruck in some tree sap, anon.
they gonna find at least rapper gold teeth lmao. get your heads out of your asses
Most resin fossils are destroyed. Your ONE fossil is unlikely to make it a billion years.
The continents will shift a lot over 1 billion years, but won't completely be recycled. However the output of the Sun increases as it becomes a red giant, in 1 billion years the earth will be too hot for liquid water to exist and it'll be uninhabitable. Eventually the sun will expand beyond earth's orbit, but everything will be dead long before that. Earth is temporary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
>in 1 billion years the earth will be too hot
ngmi
They would keep that knowledge to a few and use whatever they gain from it to rule over others, also they would deny existence of any previous civilization to generate a sense of isolation and vastness induced dread in their cattle. Of course assuming these new species where intellectually like humans.
we'd still have satellites, I think. some may still be around in 1 billion years. plus we did find older than 1 billion years stuff like seaweed
I'm pretty conflicted anon. I oscillate between having an issue with that and understanding why it happens. strangest of things. it's like a dissonance between what I'd wish humans were and what they actually are. in this environment.
LMAO, of course not. Most of them will fall in less than a century, a thousand years at most. The only ones that can remain longer are geostationary, and even those drift in just a couple of decades. In a million years there is no guarantee they will remain in stable orbits instead falling or going away for good.
brainlet. Elon's Roadster:
>Simulations over a 3-million-year timespan found a probability of the Roadster colliding with Earth at approximately 6%, or with Venus at approximately 2.5%. These probabilities of collision are similar to those of other near-Earth objects. The half-life for the tested orbits was calculated as approximately 20 million years, but with trajectories varying significantly following a close approach to the Earth–Moon system in 2091.
>but with trajectories varying significantly following a close approach to the Earth–Moon system in 2091.
cool, in 2091 somebody is going to be able to use their custom Starship Mk IV to go retrieve this thing
So Elon's fear of extinction will actually cause humanity's extinction. Cool.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to prove that something is artificial outside of certain conditions; and scientists operate under a "horses not zebras" mindset.
Let's use the Pyramids as an example. Let's say we discovered the Pyramids without all the historical baggage of them. What would we think of them? Initially, the mass media would be abuzz with "WHO BUILT THESE?" speculation, but this would quickly die down as 'rational' scientists point out how unlikely it is for such a large structure to have been built by primitive populations, point out there are no explanations (because we're starting fresh, mind you) for how they were built, and conclude with the structures only coincidentally looking man-made and far more likely just being natural formations. Any resemblance to bricks is just coincidence.
And while this seems absurd, it happens all the time. Pic related was reduced to nothing more than a few hilly mounds that people didn't even realize were artificial until some schizo archaeologists started poking around, and then even then there's wild debate over similar mound structures that dot a large area of the American southeast.
None of this involves aliens, none of this involves cryptids, none of this involves dead species - and yet scientists still insist on 'Horses not zebras'. Imagine that but trying to connect some weird plastic shards with the skeletons of a tailless primate.
After enough time, so just about 10,000 years, every piece of metal humanity has ever created will have rusted/eroded into dust, gotten washed out by streams into sediment where over longer geological timescales it will deposit into the earth as ore.
Every piece of plastic will have long washed out into the ocean, where bacteria slowly break it down over hundreds of years.
Glass/concrete will have completely eroded back into sand/minerals.
To answer your question, even after a million years there would be very, very few traces of human existence. Any future sentient animal's bet on rediscovering humanity's level of intelligence would be examining elevated trace uranium levels from our period along with carbon isotopes indicating burning of fossil fuels.
I think all morons having your opinion believe there was a previous intelligent civilisation on Earth, we just don't know because of the imbecilic reasons we keep mentioning. most humans are fricking moronic
Anon this is how much glass erodes in the ocean over just about 100 years. Now imagine what it'll look like in 10,000 years, maybe just a little bit of discolored sand. Human build shit doesn't last very long on Earth timescales. With that being said it's not impossible to tell if sentient lifeforms existed in the very distant past, you just have to look at radioisotope signatures which indicate a civilization has become advanced enough for nuclear fission/fossil fuel burning. An advanced species wouldn't know the exact extent of human intellectual capabilities, so advanced mathematics and physics, but they could get a pretty good idea. Also no, there is no indication that advanced species existed in the past.
half a billion years
Yeah, that's because the shells and bones leech out the surrounding rock minerals and become rock themselves. The original bone isn't preserved at all, it's basically a really fancy crystal that happens to have started growing due to a biological organism.
oh and for some reason NOTHING from what we ever made can do that. weird hill to die on but whatever, this is fricking moronic. I bet you've all seen some moronic youtube video telling you shit
Ok, sure some human bones could get fossilized, but that's not enough to tell a civilization how advanced we were. The truth is that 99% of what humanity has created today will be gone in 10k years
>The truth is that 99% of what humanity has created today will be gone in 10k years
this is some weird cult thing I'm almost certain
gold doesn't rust for fricks sake. pyramids are fricking 4500 yo, what the frick you mean 99% of what humanity created is gone in twice as long? what the frick is wrong with you? are you a drooling moron?
>some fricking massive piece of rock intentionally constructed to be preserved as long as possible
>in the Earth environment which experiences the LEAST amount of microbial degradation and water erosion
>somehow representative of everything humans have made today
Holy shit this is the level of intellectualism we're on. Gold doesn't rust, but it will still be eventually dissolved into water from erosion, where it'll get deposited into sediment and eventually rock.
yeah bro for sure there's no human basement where shit can chill for 10k years. the absolute state of IQfylets
nobody is talking about a mere 10k years, the question is a million, and a BILLION
>nobody is talking about a mere 10k years
all of these mouthbreathing smoothbrains mentioned 10k years span
>nobody
>the question is a million
as moronic as 10k years in the context of ANY FRICKING TRACE
>as moronic as 10k years in the context of ANY FRICKING TRACE
ummm nope, 10k it would be easy to discover us and how advanced we were, but a million, nah, and a billion, no fricking way
>but a million
we found shit that lived 400 million years ago
Would you say that fossil belongs to an intelligent life form? Just think about the evidence you need to see to say yes. Future intelligent life doesn't need to look like us, and their technology could heavily rely on bio-engineered life forms. In such case their expectations of what is an ancient civilization and intelligent beings would be wildly different from out expectations.
Also ironically all the shit which was built 2000+ years ago is exactly the stuff which is most likely to still be standing in 10000 years. It's called survivorship bias.
your brains are completely eroded
Gold doesn't rust but that doesn't make it immune to erosion because it is soft as shit.
Yeah, you're right. Nothing we've made can do that because it isn't also rock. That's what bones are - rock calcium deposits - and through fossilization they become rock themselves. Hydrocarbons don't do that. Glass doesn't do that either. Several million years from now, our era will be nothing more than a vast landscape of unusual microplastics embedded sedimentary rock, some really weird iron deposits that used to be battleships or e-waste, and massive mounds that are all that's left of skyscrapers and urban areas. All with lots of fossilized human skeletons, which as I said earlier
will be treated as complete coincidence.
>record of huge ecological disruptions at multiple places
>weird metal deposits and trace materials that aren't found at any other layer
>massive number of bipedal skeletons with opposable thumbs and extremely high cranial capacity
>all of this occuring in roughly the same geological time period
anon you're an idiot if you don't think they'd figure it out if they attained our level of technology
>record of huge ecological disruptions at multiple places
This is literally how most geological eras are defined, and thus is normal.
>weird metal deposits and trace materials that aren't found at any other layer
Coincidence.
>massive number of bipedal skeletons with opposable thumbs and extremely high cranial capacity
Prove they had advanced tools.
>all of this occuring in roughly the same geological time period
Coincidence.
Look for horses, not zebras.
>Look for horses, not zebras.
Then what the frick is the horse? If you're in Africa and someone says "Hey, I think I see a zebra!" do you tell him that it's probably just a horse on which somebody painted stripes?
>yeah, this omnivorous species with optimal biology for tool use and intellectual capacity appeared almost out of nowhere and completely dominated the global ecosystem for a short period of time coinciding with some extremely unusual naturally occurring metal formations, depletion of hydrocarbons, (insert all other weird things not found in any other layer). What? No, don't be preposterous, it's highly unlikely they were capable of sustaining civilization.
It would absolutely be a mainstream theory, even if it's something that couldn't be confirmed
>Then what the frick is the horse? If you're in Africa and someone says "Hey, I think I see a zebra!" do you tell him that it's probably just a horse on which somebody painted stripes?
Autist, there's a well known idiom that goes "When you hear hooves, look for horses not zebras", and it means that when you see evidence for something you should make mundane conclusions not possible but unlikely ones. This is key to scientific thinking, and why scientists can be so stupid sometimes because when the unusual is right in front of their face they will assume it to be either mundane or a hoax. See my example earlier regarding the unusual mounds in the Southeastern United States. They're fricking everywhere, have no natural explanation, and yet scientists assume they "must" be natural and not manmade for no other reason than "UM BUT WHAT WERE THEY USED FOR?"
we're not going to find any alien artifacts on Earth are we?
>were to emerge
These qualities don't just "emerge", OP.
Also the gorillion years natural timescale is most likely fake. This world is not that old.
if we wipe no life is making it off Earth. if rats make it humanoids could pop up in another 150 mil years but they'd have a shit time with energy requirements as we got all the low hanging fruit. they would be fricked
That also applies to current civilization. Some other hominid species could have developed a more advanced civilization hundredths of thousands years ago taking advantage of a resource we don't even know it existed, and collapsed after such resource was gone.
Does no one here realize how fossilization works? Stuff gets embedded in sediment, then stays there undisturbed for millions of years. Everything that is exposed to erosion doesn't leave fossils. Same with man made things. A glass bottle that gets tossed around in the surf is gone pretty quickly. One that sinks down to a lake bed and gets encased in the mud with more sediment settling on top will stay there until those layers are disturbed, which can be many millions of years. We've got leaves and fungi and other very delicate stuff hundred of millions of years old, because it got deposited and covered before it could decompose.
There will be a distinct layer full of anthropocene markers, including tons of plastic and everything else we make. You will be able to reliably date a 20th century layer from cola bottles 100 million years from now and anything with comparable intelligence and interest in archeology will figure that out.
>anything with comparable intelligence and interest in archeology will figure that out
false
(they might not have an interest in paleontology)
The plastic will have long degraded into carbon after 200 million years. It's sturdy, but not THAT sturdy. Even after a thousand years it will have broken down assuming there are no outside forces.
Only if it is exposed to wind, water, sun and oxygen. If its encased in sediment, it might change its chemical composition and have some kind of mineralization going on, but you will still be able to find the distinct shape of the object, just like we find a distinct shape of a 200million year old leaf.
With hydrocarbons depleted their civilization will not develop technology to manufacture plastics at industrial scale, so linking those plastics to an advanced civilization will be dismissed as nonsense.
In a billion years the sun will boil the oceans, unless we intervene.
On timescales of tens of thousands to a few millions of years, the presence of mankind would be easily identifiable. Ignoring the survival of individual artifacts, the two telltale signs would be the presence of nonnatural radioisotopes in the environment and the nonuniform utilization of natural resources. These radioisotopes would exist in ratios characteristic of fission products and the resource depletion would have a geographic distribution that would raise lots of questions. Why are resources in the north american landmass depleted far more substantially than in africa? Why does the depletion go beyond easily accessible surface levels? The latter proves that there have been no prior advanced civilizations.
> The latter proves that there have been no prior advanced civilizations.
A more advanced civilization can deplete those so it doesn't prove anything relevant.
> presence of nonnatural radioisotopes
The interpretation depends on preconceptions. If there is a narrative they want or must follow then evidence doesn't matter at all, and will be hidden and destroyed like it is the case with New Zealand's stone ruins.
They'd just come up with some Rube Goldberg natural explanation for it. Anything but a technosignature.
whats about the human stuff on moon? or will it get eaten away by the radiation and microasteroids? i guess it could be also possible that somewhere aliens are recording us right now and are kind enough to share it with the new overlords of earth 1 billion years later.
>the new overlords of earth 1 billion years later.
don't think anything will still be around by that point. maybe some deep underground simple life. at most.
Idk