Pre-human civilizations on Earth

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It's not just a single species that would have to hide. It would have to be at least an entire order which is unlikely. Not technically impossible for the pre KT event, but exceedingly unlikely.

On the other hand, the Elder Things were colonists, as were their enemies. For a game setting, it might be sufficient to know when an offworld-engendered civilization could plausibly have been active.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by thrash

On the other hand, the Elder Things were colonists, as were their enemies. For a game setting, it might be sufficient to know when an offworld-engendered civilization could plausibly have been active.

Or a time-travelling one.
And it doesn't have to be Earth that we're talking about for that matter, it could be a game of exoarchaeology, but the same principles would hold.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by thrash

On the other hand, the Elder Things were colonists, as were their enemies. For a game setting, it might be sufficient to know when an offworld-engendered civilization could plausibly have been active.

Lovecraftian monsters also dealt mainly with soft bodied low population biologicals and moving/sculpting rocks. That kind of stuff would probably hide in the fossil record quite well.

Once we invoke aliens, all sorts of things become more plausible, even if we ignore superscience, magic, and psychic powers.

For short lived colonies, just look at how long it took to prove "Vikings" made it to the Americas, and that was only a few centuries ago.

[ak_aramis]

Given that some of the items discovered from 2000 years ago look damned near like ore... Heck, the Titanic is turning to iron ore as we speak - rusticles a plenty.

Our mining of rich veins of iron &/or copper ores might be the remnants of silurian junkyards...

... I doubt it, but it's possible, given a million years of oxidative stress.

[jason taylor]

You have to prove not only that they are tools but that they are not human tools. The only way to do that is to prove that the control mechanism was not made for humans to grip(and even there that could only mean it is a coupling or that it used domestic animals). Or that it had voice command technology.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You have to prove not only that they are tools but that they are not human tools. The only way to do that is to prove that the control mechanism was not made for humans to grip(and even there that could only mean it is a coupling or that it used domestic animals). Or that it had voice command technology.

Or that it came from strata with no trace of hominid fossils.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Or that it came from strata with no trace of hominid fossils.

They might cremate at a nuclear facility for all we know.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It's not just a single species that would have to hide. It would have to be at least an entire order which is unlikely. Not technically impossible for the pre KT event, but exceedingly unlikely.

At first I tended to agree with that, but the more I think about that, the less sure I am that it's true. The fossil record is much, much sparser than is commonly realized, compared to the total mass of life forms that have existed, over the course of the Phanerozoic. It takes the right conditions to make a fossil, a dead organism at the right time and place, and then humans have to find that fossil, and it has to be complete enough to show the relevant traits.

As I ponder it, I begin to suspect that there might be many orders missing from our knowledge even yet, and the further back we go, the more so. Esp. since even an entire taxonomic order doesn't necessarily have to be all that numerous in terms of member-species.

That doesn't prove such an order existed, of course, but I don't think we can rule it out with any confidence based on the fossil record, either.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

They might cremate at a nuclear facility for all we know.

Yeah, a given society might, but what about their ancestors and relatives?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Yeah, a given society might, but what about their ancestors and relatives?

That assumes there are enough of them present to have variable funerary practices.