I have a theory based on nothing but conjecture and personal observations.

We have always marvelled at the amazing feats of those gone by. The pyramids, ancient computers and batteries. Nascar pictures and an assortment of varous artifacts.

Just recently I saw a movie that had showed Mount rushnore, and it got me thinking. What if, in several thousand years we are not longer due to wars or asteroid or whatever, and man has had to start from scratch intellectually and socially and all that remains of our time here is this mountain. Will we be marvelled at in the same way?

What if we are part of a cycle of 'human' existance that is regularly erased and renewed.

They say the Dinosaurs became extinct roughly 65m years ago, and they oldest neanderthall is 2-3m years old. What happened between the that time? also, they say the oldest civilisation is only 6-8000 years old. between Neanderthalls and those 'oldest' civilisatons, there is plenty of time for many cutures to have been created and advanced to our current level or even beyond, and then destroyed leaving behind only remnants etched into the ground or items made of stone.

You know they say that if humanity were to become extinct today, there would be no archaeological proof of our existance 10,000 years from now (due to erosion, degradation etc).

Makes you think what exactly our ancestors got up to 10,000 years ago, and which of their achievements we are unknowingly repeating today.

You are right. We are only lucky enough to have what fossils we do have because the animal/human happened to die in the right place at the right time. 10000 years from now there may be one or two of our skeletons left for future generations to think we were primative and had limited thinking capacity. (I guess if they found GWB skull they may be right... )

Thanks for the support on this theory. I was expecting to get clobbered

[edit on 12/9/2008 by VIKINGANT]

Haha.. I knew there was no shortage of fossil fuel... I guess WE are tomorrows fuel. You know what they same, what goes around comes around. I do wonder however, if there was an extinction event, what would be thing evidence left behind a billion years from now? I suppose that stuff like titanium, precioius metals, would survive quite a long while,. It makes you think about that "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" quotation.