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By: Bjarne Kommnick
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Humans are the first highly developed species on earth.
Or was there a civilization before our time?
Scientists are researching this question to answer another.
ROCHESTER - Humans are the first highly developed species on earth, that is the scientific consensus.
Nevertheless, researchers from NASA and the University of Rochester have questioned this theory, even though they did not believe in the success of their study in advance.
Nevertheless, the research team addressed the question “Did a highly developed civilization exist before humanity?”
However, the researchers wanted to answer a completely different question.
How long would alien life forms recognize that humanity had lived on Earth?
“Difficult to answer”: question about highly developed civilization before humans
Even if it seems absurd, it cannot be completely ruled out that humans are not the first highly developed life form on earth.
“That's a difficult question to answer,” Gavin A. Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Adam Frank of the University of Rochester told The Atlantic in reference to their 2018 study. The researchers further explain about a possible forgotten civilization: “If you don’t look for it, you might miss the evidence of its existence.”
What might a civilization have looked like before humans?
© Symbolfoto/imago/Herbert Bucco
Their study is a thought experiment with an “astrobiological perspective” on humanity and its traces on Earth.
In the long term, over hundreds of millions of years, only extremely light traces of civilization would be visible.
The accumulation of rare metals and radioactive elements and in particular the adjustment of carbon, nitrogen and energy cycles could indicate this.
Study name: |
The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? (The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?) |
Publication date: |
April 10, 2018 |
Authors: |
Gavin A. Schmidt, Adam Frank |
Predecessor civilization on Earth would be “extremely unlikely to be recognized”
However, artificial materials from a possible predecessor civilization are “extremely unlikely to be recognized,” as the researchers describe.
The scientists point to the Antikythera mechanism, the only remaining and therefore oldest of its kind, even though its existence only dates back a few thousand years.
The “Antikythera Mechanism” is the last and oldest artifact of its kind, leading researchers to believe that evidence of humanity would be difficult to identify just a few thousand years after its extinction.
© Aristidis Vafeiadakis / IMAGO
Paleobiologist contradicts study: “Geologist would very quickly recognize something extraordinary”
Paleobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz from the University of Leicester believes the researchers' work is extremely important, but disagrees on one point.
According to him, it is entirely possible that artificial materials can still be recognized as such even after hundreds of millions of years.
“A geologist of any species would very quickly recognize them as something extraordinary,” he tells The Atlantic.
He believes that a global civilization would have used enormous amounts of these materials, just as people do today with, for example, concrete.
The more economical a possible predecessor civilization would have been with its resources, the less likely it would be to recognize it today.
Therefore, according to the study, it is entirely possible that humanity could still be recognized in the earth's rocks for several million years after its extinction and could be recognized as such by extraterrestrial life forms, even if most of the evidence would disappear completely over time.
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