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Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

nautil.us

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Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#51

Post by notahacker »

hooande wrote: post #38
DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

This assumes that their technology would be similar to ours. They could have used biological mechanical parts, made from plant or animal material. They could have had radically different theories of mechanics or construction that better fit the state of the planet at their time. In general the statement "They couldn't have been civilized because they aren't exactly like us" limits what we look for and how we look for…

The statement "they couldn't have been civilized because they aren't exactly like us" is a straw man though

The actual question the article posits is "Could an Industrial Civilization Have Predated Humankind?", and so it seems logical to take evidence of industry as a starting point to answer that question. A mere couple of hundred years of human industry has moved vast quantities of matter about, created many new types of molecule, demonstrably altered the climate and filled sediment beds with objects far more eyecatching and likely to be preserved than the dinosaur feathers and skin prints and footprints we've found fossils of. An industrial civilization need not regard combustion engines as the most useful power source, prefer wheels to gliders or think straight lines look cool, but it does need to be characterised by some sort of industry.

A hypothetical species of dinosaur that spent its life writing beautiful poetry, studiously avoiding dropping its organic tools anywhere they might be fossilised and generally being content enough with its life to not try to remake the planet for its convenience might even be more intelligent and cultured than us, but it wouldn't be an industrial civilization.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#52

Post by placesalt »

FTA:

“The best [counter-argument] is probably the issue of deep mining,” Schmidt said. “We are mining very old deposits for metals and ore, and if these had been depleted by a prior civilization, it might have been noticed. These place limits on the scope of a prior civilization, but don’t eliminate the possibility.”

This has interested me before, and I think it's good evidence to the contrary.

I am not a geologist, but from what I know, "Very old" means the precambrian shield in Canada, for example, which is among, if not the, oldest rock on earth (~3.6Gy). Oldest, because before that time, the planet was molten on its surface. We're mining that today, and the geology can be fit to geological models: afaik, the geology being encountered in the very old rock is what people expect to see from naturally-occurring processes.

I do still wonder, though, what rock would look like after ~billions of years, if parts of it had been mined out, and whether that mining would be detectable. The rock is hard rock; would you see a corridor of rubble in solid rock, from a collapsed tunnel? Or are there still enough geological forces acting on the rock to turn the rubble from a collapsed tunnel into something resembling metamorphic placer (river-borne) rock, for example?

Interesting question, either way.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#53

Post by AlotOfReading »

tarikjn wrote: post #45
AlotOfReading wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a silly video. The argument he's making is called a unilinear teleology. History is not an arrow-line march from less advanced to more advanced, and it's incredibly common for the apparent workmanship of artifacts to "regress" as styles and intentions change over time. Just look at all the people who complain about modern art because "classical takes more skill". Also, there's essentially nothing you can't do wi…

As someone who works with manufacturing, I don’t think it’s silly. Precision is not just a function of time available, manpower and talent, but also tooling technology. Manufacturing a single replica with today’s technology is believed to be challenging — and has not been attempted yet — but hopefully someone will take the challenge soon. There are no serious claims that these can be made with known ancient technolog…

This is not modern precision manufacturing and metrology, it's abrasively grinding down rock that's been roughly shaped. It's tedious as all hell, but well within the toolbox for ancient Egyptians (not to mention many other societies). There are a lot of options to do the rough shaping. Egyptians are known to have used abrasive drills for some artifacts, but other cultures often used rocks of the same or greater hardness as chisels alongside other mechanical methods for rough shaping.

Again, you can do this to shape virtually any rock. Stonemasons don't do this today because it's excessively annoying and slow. It's not a coincidence that khafre enthroned is a royal piece for a wealthy and powerful pharoah.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#54

Post by gizajob »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #53
tarikjn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works with manufacturing, I don’t think it’s silly. Precision is not just a function of time available, manpower and talent, but also tooling technology. Manufacturing a single replica with today’s technology is believed to be challenging — and has not been attempted yet — but hopefully someone will take the challenge soon. There are no serious claims that these can be made with known ancient technolog…

This is not modern precision manufacturing and metrology, it's abrasively grinding down rock that's been roughly shaped. It's tedious as all hell, but well within the toolbox for ancient Egyptians (not to mention many other societies). There are a lot of options to do the rough shaping. Egyptians are known to have used abrasive drills for some artifacts, but other cultures often used rocks of the same or greater hard…

Have you ever ground one to prove this?

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#55

Post by FredPret »

blueflow wrote: post #50
FredPret wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a long time hanging around, some organism might evolve that eats it though

Which happened for all fossils already and they are still there.

Fair point, although not all of them, and not all of those that do remain. If styrofoam ever starts rotting, maybe the styro-philes will eat 100% of each cup and poop out only completely normal organic matter. Nobody will ever find it!

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#56

Post by greatfilter250 »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #18
DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

I figure that any industrialized civilization would have left indirect evidence of itself by mucking up the fossil record with introduced species. We intentionally and unintentionally introduce plants and animals far outside their natural range. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange You would see some species inexplicably take on a worldwide distribution, or see species suddenly turn up on far away landm…

> worldwide distribution

Why does an industrial civilization need to be global?

Our industrial civilization appeared extremely quickly, perhaps in the past 300 years, but it happened to appear within a preexisting global trade and travel network. An industrial civilization which existed for a few hundred years, outside the context of such a network, might not ever see the need for one.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#57

Post by Scramblejams »

_aleph2c_ wrote: post #36
lumost wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-history is tough. Outside of written accounts and a few major cities cited in particular environments - there isn’t a lot of evidence about what humans were doing for 100k years before the Roman/Chinese empires formed. Even Egyptian history is pretty spotty. We know there were civilizations in North America such as the Mississippi River valley mound builders - but our knowledge tops out at “they existed”. It woul…

Maybe we should look off planet, look to the Lagrange points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point We might find some old equipment from an elder spacefaring species. If we don't find anything, maybe we should leave some human monuments out there so the next civilization can know about us.

Lagrange Point orbits still require station-keeping. Anything 'parked' there will eventually float away from it, unless the position is actively maintained.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#58

Post by NavinF »

roseway4 wrote: post #40
_aleph2c_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should look off planet, look to the Lagrange points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point We might find some old equipment from an elder spacefaring species. If we don't find anything, maybe we should leave some human monuments out there so the next civilization can know about us.

As the Wikipedia article mentions, we’ve already done just this with the JWST…

Naw the JWST won't stay there after it loses power.

> The points L1, L2, and L3 are positions of unstable equilibrium. Any object orbiting at L1, L2, or L3 will tend to fall out of orbit; it is therefore rare to find natural objects there, and spacecraft inhabiting these areas must employ a small but critical amount of station keeping in order to maintain their position.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#59

Post by AlotOfReading »

gizajob wrote: post #54
AlotOfReading wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not modern precision manufacturing and metrology, it's abrasively grinding down rock that's been roughly shaped. It's tedious as all hell, but well within the toolbox for ancient Egyptians (not to mention many other societies). There are a lot of options to do the rough shaping. Egyptians are known to have used abrasive drills for some artifacts, but other cultures often used rocks of the same or greater hard…

Have you ever ground one to prove this?

I've polished things with sand before and used hammerstones, yes. I'm not a stonemason though, just somone who spent a lot of time as a kid playing with rocks.

Most people will have some familiarity with emery cloth/sandpaper, which are basically the same principle. We don't even need to look at fancy egyptian statues. Carnelian beads were a common trade item across the Ancient near east and Egypt made this way. It's not magic.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#60

Post by ianburrell »

leafmeal wrote: post #12

Obviously this doesn't apply when speaking on the scale of millions of years, but I remember reading that there may not be enough easily accessible energy sources (ie fossil fuels) left to jump start another industrial civilization if our current one where to collapse.

There are a lot of coal deposits left. A lot of them are near the surface, some exposed by mines. The downside is that they are far from current civilization since the closer ones have been mined.

Wood was important in the US for industrialization. Unlike Europe, the US had lots of forests. Those might be enough for start.

Also, we know how to make electricity from solar, wind, and hydro. They need electricity and good design so may not work in beginning but for later stages.

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