• Question: Would it be possible that another race lived on the earth before the dinosaurs, but left no trace, or we don't realize it is their remnants?

    Asked by anon-182081 on 25 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Liza Selley

      Liza Selley answered on 25 Jun 2018:

      Do you mean a human race? Geneticists have been able to trace evolution of humans to after the dinosaurs were around – mammals evolved from small reptiles towards the end of the dinosaur era but it still took a very long time for early humans to roam the planet. There were almost certainly other species before the dinosaurs though as dinosaurs would have evolved from less complex organisms – initially starting with single celled organisms like bacteria.

    • Photo: Daniel Rhodes

      Daniel Rhodes answered on 26 Jun 2018:

      I read an article about this a couple of months ago! Here’s the link:
      https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-earths-only-civilization/557180/

    • Photo: Claire Donald

      Claire Donald answered on 27 Jun 2018:

      Yes I would think that it would be possible. For something to make a fossil relies on quite a few things. Firstly the body would need to be intact (or have intact parts) that were not first consumed by predators or scavengers, decayed by microorganisms, or degraded by weather. The body would have needed to be submerged in the right type of ground quickly to prevent these things happening but even then geological processes might still have damaged the specimen before we find it. If the body was delicate, small or soft bodied this would also not help them be preserved and last long enough to be discovered.

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