Campaign seed: Prior Indigneous Technological Species

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Would the high iron content stand out? What would all the glass turn into? would the concrete look like normal limestone or would it be distinctive? would our mixture of building materials give us away as a technological species? Are there any objects that would survive long enough due to strength and resistance to corrosion.

Glass is actually pretty stable. Obsidian is volcanic glass, and we use tektites as evidence of ancient impacts. Metals corrode and dissolve so easily they probably don't hang around millions of years, but provided they get buried fast enough, there's no reason to expect brick or concrete or glass or ceramics or cut stone not to last millions of years.

[lwcamp]

That article had me considering whether the ancient precursor beings in my setting might have colonized Venus with only occasional visits to Earth. Unfortunately, I've pegged their existence quite firmly to the late Ediacaran/early Cambrian, and geological evidence shows that Venus hasn't had running water for over a billion years so there goes that idea.

Luke

[Flyndaran]

I also think that Venus had that massive full or near full surface turn over around 1/2 a billion years ago that would have obliterated all evidence existing previously.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Glass is actually pretty stable. Obsidian is volcanic glass, and we use tektites as evidence of ancient impacts. Metals corrode and dissolve so easily they probably don't hang around millions of years, but provided they get buried fast enough, there's no reason to expect brick or concrete or glass or ceramics or cut stone not to last millions of years.

So archeologists looking at human remains will find a "boundary layer" composed of crushed concrete, brick, glass, and other ceramic chunks that marks where humans once lived? cool.

[Boomerang]

Would it be possible for one species of dinosaur to have developed a TL8 civilisation comparable to our own but the evidence has been overlooked?

[adm]

Very unlikely, given the amount of seismic and ground penetrating radar surveys that have been done looking for oil, and archeology sites.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So archeologists looking at human remains will find a "boundary layer" composed of crushed concrete, brick, glass, and other ceramic chunks that marks where humans once lived? cool.

Probably. It's been said that the characteristic marker of human archeological sites might be our toilet bowls - extremely common, geologically durable, and constrained enough by human anatomy and cultural history to be clearly human products rather than artifacts of some other extinct sapient species.

One other point that doesn't get made much that probably should is that in principle anything can fossilize. The fossils we find are of living things because that's what there were a lot of that had sufficiently well defined shapes we can identify them, but it's possible far future paleontologists may end up scratching their heads trying over fossilized egg cartons and twist caps.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

Would it be possible for one species of dinosaur to have developed a TL8 civilisation comparable to our own but the evidence has been overlooked?

Possible? Yes. Likely? That's hard to say with confidence, because it depends on a bunch of assumptions either way. Within the limits of what we think we know about geology and the effects of time, erosion, chemistry, and geology, it looks unlikely. But there are a lot of assumptions built into 'what we think we know', too.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Possible? Yes. Likely? That's hard to say .

"Possible" includes their hypothetical civilization being confined to the general area of Chicxulub.

[thrash]

The north shore of the Indian landmass or the south shore of Nepal/Bhutan would probably not show many recognizable remains, either.