The Silurian Hypothesis Suggests An Advanced Civilization Lived On Earth Before Humans

Story by Samuel Cole • 2w


In Doctor Who, an alien species called the Silurians exists – technologically-advanced humanoid reptiles who lived long before humans, going into hiding and being basically undiscovered again until everyone's favorite time-traveling alien came along in his phone box. So far, so not science. However, in 2018 two University of Cambridge scientists named their paper The Silurian hypothesis: would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?, after the fictional species.

Published in the Journal of Astrobiology, the paper does not argue that there was a technologically advanced species long before humanity, but proposes the interesting hypothetical question of whether it would be possible to find "geological fingerprints" of a bygone civilization that expired millions of years ago.

"One of the key questions in assessing the likelihood of finding such a civilization is an understanding of how often, given that life has arisen and that some species are intelligent, does an industrial civilization develop?" they write in the paper.

"Humans are the only example we know of, and our industrial civilization has lasted (so far) roughly 300 years (since, for example, the beginning of mass production methods). This is a small fraction of the time we have existed as a species, and a tiny fraction of the time that complex life has existed on the Earth's land surface."

"This short time period raises the obvious question as to whether this could have happened before."

More:
https://www.iflscience.com/the-silurian-hypothesis-suggests-an-advanced-civilization-lived-on-earth-before-humans-77654