Billion year old civilizations?

I came up with this theory that I would like to get some help with either proving or disproving...even if it helps lean me more in one direction, I'd really like some comments.

Throughout history, there has been catastrohic events (i.e. ice ages, extinction, etc.). Could it be possible that with the 4.5 billion year old planet (oldest rocks on Earth date to around that time) we are living on it could have had at one time ancient civilizations, ones that had a superior intelligence like or even greater than our own?

I've given this a lot of thought and it seems that because of the age of the Earth there could possibly have been great civilizations much like our own. Humans or human like peoples could have populated the Earth but because of the amount of time and the events that Earth has succumed to, we are unable to find any evidence of these people.

Even with Evolution, this theory I think could still work. Imagine if you will a terrible catastrophy like Nuclear Winter, many people are killed by the devastation, leaving only a few that move into caves, possibly even de-evolving...

Seems plausible doesn't it?

I hate to see an empty thread and i like your point. Yes, i suppose that anythings possible and a billion years is a long time for stuff to have been eroded away by the wind and rain.

It would be interesting if some one with some geologhical skill could give us an example of the disintergration of say a 1 ton block of square granite or sandstone subjected to a million years worth of rain/ice/heat etc.

regards.

You might like to check out the following thread, in which we discussed "Creation Recycling":

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I often thought about a similar event. I've also thought about the possibilty if that would be true, then perhaps this is not the first universe to have had a big bang, expand, life forms, then for the universe to collapse and retract on itself. they say the universe is infinite, then maybe this is the nth time it's had a big bang and expanded, and it carries on doing that, collapsing, another big bang and start all over.

the fact that they say the chances of all of this being just 'right' for us to live on, would have no bearing on a universe that repeats itself, and carries on doing so for an infinite number of times, hence eventually intelligent life would happen.

unlikely, but fun to think about.

[edit on 17-2-2006 by shaunybaby]

i remember learning this quote when i was a kid, it sort of puts our view of time into perspective.

From Hendrik Willem van Loon's History of Mankind (published 1922), a version of the full quotation:

"High in the North in a land called Svithjod there is a mountain.
It is a hundred miles long and a hundred miles high
and once every thousand years a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak.
When the mountain has thus been worn away a single day of eternity will have passed."

I hate to be the killjoy, but I'm inclined to think not.

We believe that Earth started to gain an oxygen atmosphere 2 billion years ago, and only then would an ozone protect the development of complex land on life.

That cuts the time for evolution on land in half, and it isn't until 550 or fewer million years ago that we start seeing a real diversity of complex life on land, and it's all invertibrate.

Simple vertibrates show up 350 MYA or so, then a lot of stuff abruptly dies out in the Permian Extinction, and dinosaurs and small mammals are up next.

It would be extremely hard to sell me on the idea of a lost species capable of advanced civilization anytime prior to 150MYA, and at that point I still find it hard to suspend disbelief; we'd probably talking about some kind of intelligent evolution of reptiles.

It becomes a lot easier to buy between 20MYA and 5MYA, after apes show up.

So the question in my mind becomes not a matter of billions of years, but of millions, and I wonder what evidence there would be if there had been an advanced civilization.

There is an example that I use often, and I do it because I have a background in construction and I'm familiar with the basic components of our the things we build, and what would remain if we blew it all up beyond recognition.

Paving and cement would be evident for LONG, LONG after they had been disintegrated. When New York City has been dead for several million years, what will remain is a thick layer of rust, uniformly sized rocks, and trace amounts of oil. These will stand out sharply in contrast to the soil above and below.
To anhilate the evidence that NYC had ever been there, you'd have to run it over with a glacier, then put it under the ocean and leave it there. Even still, NYC couldn't exist without outside support, so you'd have to do the same thing to EVERYWHERE that was settled.

So the problem we run into is basically that evolution as we understand it doesn't allow for an ancient civilization to have existed and then been destroyed beyond recognition by geology.

If we die out tomorrow, I'm quite sure that there will be absolutely no sign of us in something like 0.3-1.0 BILLION years- and then whatever comes next may be able to entertain this theory without evolution getting in the way.


Let me throw one little bone to your idea however- if ETs had been here for mining or research a long, long, long time ago- we'd probably never find out about it.

We might some day be suprized at just how long civilizations have existed, and what is actually out in that darkness of space.

Troy

nichole, dont know about superior or greater than, but the chances of a civilisation around iron or middle ages before our recorded history,wouldnt count that out.Could be that some of their tech would be different to what we have produced.Possibly organic or bio tech which wouldnt leave traces for future civs to discover.Just a thought.

Cheers M4S.

Vagabond,

I'd like to point out that you're assuming that an advanced earlier civilization would build massive sprawling cities like us humans do. They could've been more like "The Nox" in Stargate for all we know.

I'm not for or against the possibility of an earlier civilization, just throwing in ideas and thoughts just to see where it leads to.

The mayans believed in this earth cycle, and I think we are in the third cycle, estimated by their calendar to end 2012.

I've read about the Mayan calendars and have heard about the cycles. However, from what I understand because of our own modern dating techniques, the calendar could be off by alot. Guess we'll just have to wait and see

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Vagabond,
I'd like to point out that you're assuming that an advanced earlier civilization would build massive sprawling cities like us humans do.

Well, I suppose we need a definition of advanced. I'm open to the possibility of intelligent civlizations of a non-industrialized nature, and in a way that's advanced.

I'm very open to the possibility that someone might have had and then lost writing before Homo sapiens showed up. I'm open to the possibility of domestication of animals, farming, and simple tools beyond creative use of rocks.

That's extremely clever, but not earth-sakingly advanced.

When I say that I don't think there has been an advanced civilization before us, what I am saying is that before us, I find it extremely unlikely that any terrestrially evolved race could have civilized and built upon a substantial portion of the Earth, reached our level of scientific achievement, etc. without leaving a great deal of evidence that we would be likely to discover sooner or later if we were being observant.

They could've been more like "The Nox" in Stargate for all we know.

I loved that episode, but the Nox had a big advanced city that they showed the SG1 guys before sending them back through the gate; they were just hiding it.

I'm not for or against the possibility of an earlier civilization, just throwing in ideas and thoughts just to see where it leads to.

I have no bone to pick with objective curiousity. Your angle on this subject is perfectly reasonable. I'm just giving my views and reasoning on the subject, with the concession that there are a few things I can't be sure of, and that some of the things I think I'm sure of might just plain be wrong. (As a matter of fact, I think I was wrong before, once, but that doesn't count because I was drunk.) lol

What I would like to know is why sometime around 50,000 years ago everything changed. Tools were beginning to be developed, fire was being used...what changed?

For those of you that would say that we would have found remains of these previous cultures by now, I did read from a credible source that ( really trying to remember here ) if there were, it would be extremely hard to find evidence of them. Something to do with the layers of the earth, it's movements or something like that. Wish i still had the source.
Evolutionary-wise it's hard to say if it's possible for truly advanced civs to have been here before us.
It's entirely possible that a star-gate like scenario took place i guess, where they do not colonise the entire planet.
Look at the serpo/eben people for example ( not saying weather it's true or not ) if some event happened to these people and they lay for a few million years to be washed away by the sands of time it would be hard to find their remains. If the planet is changing/evolving etc that is.
And the earth does. It often covers its tracks.
I like the idea of previous civillizations on earth, it would really put us in our place.

I agree, i think something odd did happen 50k years ago. I'd love to know what
I strongly feel that there was some kind of intervention, but sadly it's just a feeling without too much evidence besides google to back me up.

I am currently studying, for lack of a better term, the Theory of Diffusionism.
The premise as I understand it is that all, or most anyway, of the ancient civilizations on Earth had a common origin. That would certainly explain why all over the world civilizations seemingly sprang up out of dry earth. I gather from the limited reading that I have been able to do that the theory does not have a wide audience of adherents. But there is my two pennies worth. Make of it what you will.

Perhaps there were smart dinosaurs that started a civilization, and grew till it destroyed itself along with the other dinosaurs. Allowing mammels to populate and dominate what was left....

just a thought

Just a question.. In cave drawings that have been discovered, were there ever drawings that dated around that time that would explain changes?

Originally posted by seagull That would certainly explain why all over the world civilizations seemingly sprang up out of dry earth.

I'm guessing that many civilizations seeming to spring up at the same time, from just a few thousand years back is the same thing noted by researchers.
That being, specific things - like inventions - seemed to spring up everywhere at the same time.

I believe that since we're looking back over a great expanse of time that a 10 - 50 year period of time is not discernible.
Given mans capacity and inclination to travel, even someone on foot can cover great expanses of distance in that 10 - 50 year period of time which, answers the all-same-time question for me.


Other things that make me wonder are tools and fasteners (nails, screws) comparable to modern ones have been unearthed in seams of coal far underground.

Once upon a time I was talking to a gentleman who'd done quite a bit of tunneling work.
One story he told was finding archeological evidence far inside a mountain about 4500' under the peak.
And like many construction companies, they kept quiet and kept digging.

The mayans believed in this earth cycle, and I think we are in the third cycle, estimated by their calendar to end 2012.

Using our modern day calendar, when did the 3rd cycle start?

It's an interesting idea that I've thought about myself. Time and environment are pretty harsh on Earth. Even a civilization's mightiest achievements probably would not stand up to repeated glaciation, meteorite wave bombardment, volcanos, plate shifts, etc.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the notion that there may have been civilizations a billion years ago that have long-since vanished is that a billion years ago, the atmosphere of the Earth was not exactly great for keeping land animals alive. The atmosphere was mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with probably much less than half the amount of oxygen that it has today (around 21%).

And it didn't have much of an ozone layer to speak of, either. So whoever is going to build this civilization would have to have a pretty thick skin or lots of sunscreen.

So unless we're talking about cities constructed by some kind of intelligent, armored plant-men of some kind (of which no such fossil has been found), chances are pretty slim that any major civilizations existed.

Maybe later, between glacial periods, some quick-thinking mammals of some sort managed to develop a civilization that has since been ground down to little grains of sand. But we'd probably find a decent bit of evidence for it somewhere, like in the tropics, where there weren't any glaciers. So far, though, no dice.

[edit on 27-2-2006 by Enkidu]