Timeline Puzzles - Life After People - History.com
I caught the documentary last year, and the re-runs were so successful that they made a series out of it.
Since I was about 20 years old, I have had this belief that if there were another time that there was a human population of enormous power, similar to ours, we would have never known it existed - especially if it pre-dated elements of evolution or the first fossil record of human skeletal remains.
This theory of mine, is based on the longevity theory of our skeletal structure- of which states only the largest and smallest skeletal remains would be found past a certain period due to the strength of sedimentary pressures.
Example: take a marble sized anything- it is very hard to compact or press. similar, larger items are difficult to crush. Everything in between could theoretically dissappear and decay due to pressure and time. If true, then we may have discovered the limits of our own skeletal remains already. Why hasnt there been many remains found of the humans that were supposedly of greatest range back? Answer: the skeletons did not survive.
Anyways, a few of my friends disagree with this theory based on Archeological evidence of early man. I say to them this, the more advanced man becomes, the more we focus on the "more with less" probability theory. That is, more advanced means more survival skills. Those skills translate into better food, water and shelter techniques; which over time translate into longer lives, which then creates a bigger population. To compete with resource demand, we have built products with less resources but twice as strong as their predecessors.
To illustrate- take toy cars of 4 generations, similar in size. The oldest will weigh the most, the youngest will be featherweight of high grade aluminum, but actually more durable and stronger (if made correctly- sometimes its not).
Anyways- those lighter materials actually degrade quickly. The same goes with buildings- early buildings were a combination of plaster and thick bricking of stone. Today we pave buildings with aggregates of stone.
Roads- asphalt is actually a liquid, not a solid. Most people dont realize that asphalt is not a solid state pavement, which is why we must reshape them with hot materials. This is a by product of science- layer one is gravels, layer two can be a cement (in areas of harsh climate with extreme heat or cold; in Northern California where we do not get snow, the cement layer is sometimes non existent), then the first layer of asphalt is thick. When road repairs occur, it only takes a thin hot layer to reactivate the asphalt into a shaping form, and a machine resmooths it- taking more than 3/4 less material.
In contrast, early roads were made of 5inch by 5inch locking blocks that were pegged into the ground and locked by a mixture of sand of various sizes in the gaps.
So you can see by my two illustrations of common elements in humanity, modern man would decay much faster than prehistoric man. How long would it take for a fibre optic line to deteriorate? How long will it take for a plastic to dissappear? You might be surprised that if man were no longer around- it would be much faster than you believe.
Fundamentally, my idea is not complete. I have no solution for certain items and by products of man, but then again, my world view is that I am but a passenger on the ecosystem of Earth, and I dont propose to know so much that I can actually believe in Global Warming caused by man. There are too many variables.
But on the topic of man, it is fascinating to wonder if there were a time when there were another race just as advanced as we are, that nearly destroyed itself, and we are in the midst of a restarted civilization.....
P.S. - I love this show.
I caught the documentary last year, and the re-runs were so successful that they made a series out of it.
Since I was about 20 years old, I have had this belief that if there were another time that there was a human population of enormous power, similar to ours, we would have never known it existed - especially if it pre-dated elements of evolution or the first fossil record of human skeletal remains.
This theory of mine, is based on the longevity theory of our skeletal structure- of which states only the largest and smallest skeletal remains would be found past a certain period due to the strength of sedimentary pressures.
Example: take a marble sized anything- it is very hard to compact or press. similar, larger items are difficult to crush. Everything in between could theoretically dissappear and decay due to pressure and time. If true, then we may have discovered the limits of our own skeletal remains already. Why hasnt there been many remains found of the humans that were supposedly of greatest range back? Answer: the skeletons did not survive.
Anyways, a few of my friends disagree with this theory based on Archeological evidence of early man. I say to them this, the more advanced man becomes, the more we focus on the "more with less" probability theory. That is, more advanced means more survival skills. Those skills translate into better food, water and shelter techniques; which over time translate into longer lives, which then creates a bigger population. To compete with resource demand, we have built products with less resources but twice as strong as their predecessors.
To illustrate- take toy cars of 4 generations, similar in size. The oldest will weigh the most, the youngest will be featherweight of high grade aluminum, but actually more durable and stronger (if made correctly- sometimes its not).
Anyways- those lighter materials actually degrade quickly. The same goes with buildings- early buildings were a combination of plaster and thick bricking of stone. Today we pave buildings with aggregates of stone.
Roads- asphalt is actually a liquid, not a solid. Most people dont realize that asphalt is not a solid state pavement, which is why we must reshape them with hot materials. This is a by product of science- layer one is gravels, layer two can be a cement (in areas of harsh climate with extreme heat or cold; in Northern California where we do not get snow, the cement layer is sometimes non existent), then the first layer of asphalt is thick. When road repairs occur, it only takes a thin hot layer to reactivate the asphalt into a shaping form, and a machine resmooths it- taking more than 3/4 less material.
In contrast, early roads were made of 5inch by 5inch locking blocks that were pegged into the ground and locked by a mixture of sand of various sizes in the gaps.
So you can see by my two illustrations of common elements in humanity, modern man would decay much faster than prehistoric man. How long would it take for a fibre optic line to deteriorate? How long will it take for a plastic to dissappear? You might be surprised that if man were no longer around- it would be much faster than you believe.
Fundamentally, my idea is not complete. I have no solution for certain items and by products of man, but then again, my world view is that I am but a passenger on the ecosystem of Earth, and I dont propose to know so much that I can actually believe in Global Warming caused by man. There are too many variables.
But on the topic of man, it is fascinating to wonder if there were a time when there were another race just as advanced as we are, that nearly destroyed itself, and we are in the midst of a restarted civilization.....
P.S. - I love this show.
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