Sci-Fi Evolution in Nature?

[Akhlut]

OK, true. After a million years, the only evidence you could find would be, say... hm. What would be apparent to someone doing surveys with fairly sophisticated equipment?

Cities would appear as big hills with very metal-rich layers. If you dug to the right depth you'd find suspicious ribbons of asphalt that got buried under a layer of dirt. Certain very large cuts for highways and canals might show up, because what other geological process blasts a hundred-meter notch out of a ridgeline like that?

The road systems wouldn't appear to be anything; have you seen a parking lot that hasn't been maintained for 10 years? It's hard to discern it from an open field. Maybe slightly rockier, but nothing to really say "wait a minute...this is a consistently wide region of rocks stretching for hundreds of miles!"

The cuts for making roads through rocky hills and stuff may indicate something, but it'd be hard to say what, precisely. All the holes used to put the dynamite in would have weathered away, just leaving unusual patterns that are consistently wide throughout the world, for no apparent reason.

Edit: the most apparent things, I'd think, that would give an indication of prior civilization would be bronze (and other copper based) statues, as well as the rare gold statue or cameo jewelry (or, golden medals, like the Nobel prizes). Some computers in landfills would also give hints of the previous civilizations, though they'd be damn near impossible to decode after just finding an old one in an ancient garbage dump. Otherwise, anything made of iron that isn't stainless steel is going to rust away, while most stone structures are going to fall apart as a consequence of hundreds of earthquakes over millions of years.

Some of the best evidence, though, is going to be the fossil record. The explosion of humans and the explosion of animals being found where they shouldn't be should give a huge hint (assuming that's how Cadbrowser's game goes, with knowledge of the older civilizations having been lost). Finding nutrias in North America, pigs in Australia, starlings all of a sudden appearing in enormous numbers in North America, rats appearing EVERYWHERE, and so on.

[madd0ct0r]

Mass concrete foundations would last quite well. Piles and things possibly too. Might even create strange pillar formations if the clay erodes down around them (like the thames changing course, for example)

Asphalt is basically a thin layer of glue on top of layers of comapcted rock - but we can still find roman roads on the same principle.

Don\'t think that\'d be so clear in a million years though

[Simon_Jester]

The road systems wouldn't appear to be anything; have you seen a parking lot that hasn't been maintained for 10 years? It's hard to discern it from an open field. Maybe slightly rockier, but nothing to really say "wait a minute...this is a consistently wide region of rocks stretching for hundreds of miles!"

What's suspicious is if you dig down and find a layer of busted-up asphalt. Even if it's reduced to gravel, what the hell is it doing there?

Think about it this way. Imagine if in real life, excavations that dug into million year old rock strata kept hitting inch-thick and foot-thick layers of asphalt or weird mixes of gravel (million-year-old cement and concrete). These layers would be almost as distinctive as the KT boundary as far as the geologic column is concerned: something that came and went in a geologic eyeblink, and which is never found in any other time period.

How long would it be before people started wondering whether we were looking at the remains of ancient freeways and parking lots?

Now, granted, I'm talking about how archaeologists and paleontologists might deduce the existence of prehistoric civilizations- but I think you'd have to be really dense to miss the kind of evidence I suspect exists, if you're actually digging up the ground to any meaningful extent.

The cuts for making roads through rocky hills and stuff may indicate something, but it'd be hard to say what, precisely. All the holes used to put the dynamite in would have weathered away, just leaving unusual patterns that are consistently wide throughout the world, for no apparent reason.

Yes- in non-arbitrary locations, which align with the spidery network of weird asphalt-rubble ribbons that meet at the big piles of weird concrete-rubble/rich-iron-ore beds.

If something like this existed in real life, I think it would be nearly impossible for us to miss the evidence of such pre-ancient civilizations.

Edit: the most apparent things, I'd think, that would give an indication of prior civilization would be bronze (and other copper based) statues, as well as the rare gold statue or cameo jewelry (or, golden medals, like the Nobel prizes). Some computers in landfills would also give hints of the previous civilizations, though they'd be damn near impossible to decode after just finding an old one in an ancient garbage dump. Otherwise, anything made of iron that isn't stainless steel is going to rust away, while most stone structures are going to fall apart as a consequence of hundreds of earthquakes over millions of years.

Think about what "rust away" means- it means "oxidize into a pile of rust." It does not necessarily mean "vanish into the ether." In many cases, the rust will still be there.

[Akhlut]

I'm wondering how conspicuous the gravel layer would, given how much would become windblown and pushed apart by plants for centuries. In more urban areas, that wouldn't be much of an issue, given the leftovers of buildings would probably keep the roadwork from blowing away, as it would in the countrysides. It's just I'm wondering how much of the asphalt, concrete, and gravel would really be apparent after a million or more years, given that even after a few decades, an asphalt parking lot can look like an open field.

As for rusted away cities: depends on the city, I guess. However, here's the thing: major cities tend to be by water ways. Aside from, say, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Ulaanbataar, many major cities of the world are found near major water sources that will inevitably flood numerous times (especially now that humans aren't trying to prevent such flooding or limiting its damages) and the dams that control the flooding will burst, causing at least one very catastrophic flood downstream which will wash away a lot of evidence into the sea before there's a large sediment layer protecting the ruins of our old cities. For instance, I'm sure the cities downstream of the Three Gorges Dam will probably be wiped away, for the most part, while New Orleans will be scoured away by a mix of hurricanes and seasonal flooding from the Mississippi. To say nothing of a few inevitable tsunamis over the next few hundred years. So, I suspect that while there will be several layers of rust in former cities, I don't think it'll be quite as apparent.

And, then, of course, we have to consider that, outside of skyscrapers, a lot of buildings are rather simple constructions of stone and/or wood, along with gypsum dry wall. The wood will rot, the dry wall will turn to dust and blow away, while the stone will probably break apart from freeze/thaw cycles (at least in non-tropical conditions).

So, I think there will be signs of former human civilization, I just don't think it'll be very apparent, even in the paleontological record.

[Ziggy Stardust]

In real life, there are large numbers of ancient ruins that people lived on or near for hundreds of years without having any idea they existed (the Mississippi River valley civilizations, many Mayan cities, Macchu Picchu, etc.). And those ruins aren't even that old on the timescales we are talking about. It would be very difficult to find anything after such a long period of time, given that a few thousand years is enough to wipe away most evidence of major population centers.

Honestly, the degree to which these theoretical future humans would be aware of an ancient civilization is determined by a variety of factors. The extent of written or oral histories, artifacts, and such that are preserved through the centuries. Do we expect people to forget entirely what the past is? How cataclysmic is the collapse of contemporary civilization? How big is the population, and where do they live? At what technology level? Most modern population centers are located in strategic areas, such that, if the slate were wiped clean, many of those areas would be resettled by a new civilization. All of them? No. Las Vegas would likely be lost in the desert forever. But places like Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc etc will still end up settled, and if the population is large enough, with modern-scale excavations and construction, artifacts would be inevitable.

[Akhlut]

Contrariwise, though, the civilizations of American Indians 1000 years ago lacked intensive metalworking and dozens of buildings made from concrete and steel that were hundreds of feet tall. There is a bit of a difference between modern constructions and those of people from hundreds or thousands of years ago.

[Cykeisme]

Intuitively, I'd say the sheer scale of modern cities (and even just towns) would make the difference in leaving buried archaeological remains in perpetuity. Even if our cities were blasted to bits, with the largest chunks being only a few feet across (and this in itself is highly improbable) the layer of just materials, like metal and concrete, would be immense.
There's just so much of it that anyone who dug to that level would find it- and a lot of it- and there's no way to mistake it as being the product of natural processes.


Regarding the original question about humans evolving into very different creatures, when imagining magic soft sci-fi/pseudoscience evolution, folks can imagine all sorts of variations, like giant flying squirrel people.
Imagine, on the other hand, selecting individuals from the population to breed every generation.. a million-year eugenics program, basically. You select individuals with tiny mutations and infinitesimal variations, remove them from the population, and have them breed to form a new population. This is far more drastic than natural selective pressures, and since we're intelligently selecting individuals, it should be much more efficient. And yet, seen this way, all of a sudden it doesn't seem likely that we can breed winged gliders out of humans, even after ten thousand generations.
For example, we can select slender, lighter people with upper limbs but who still have reasonably large chest musculature and shift our population in that direction, but what if we never get any mutations for excess skin flaps under the arms? It may simply not happen.. and this is with artificial, deliberate selection!

[Korto]

Also, from an evolutionary standpoint; would conditions be right that could afford a mutated human to develop powered flight in much the same way a bat has?

Bit late to the party, I know, but I'd like to have a bit of a go at this. Reverse-engineering evolution can be fun. I'm seeing three main steps.
1) A need to return to the trees. This would be a reasonable response if the ground was too dangerous, and something we're reasonably good for.
2) If the need then came to go higher and higher in the tree, and/or out on further limbs, then it would be useful to be lighter. Smaller and lighter. Possibly the better food was right on the tree tips? Or predators were able to climb on the more solid areas?
3) Given the ground is so dangerous now (assumed in (1)) it would be useful to not have to go onto the ground at all, but instead move from tree to tree. The more obvious way for us to do this would be to jump, like orangutans, but orangutans don't fly.
Lets imagine the trees are light and spread far apart (or become more spread-apart over time). Any muscular development to enable the large leaps increase weight, meaning you can't climb as high and out in the tree, making the jump not only longer, but also more obstructed. One step forward, two steps back. However, by become lighter still, climbing higher, spreading yourself out more, you can make those jumps. By random mutation, skin flaps developed at some point, and the rest was history. Skin flaps didn't add much weight, increased "fitness", and when the stronger muscles developed for powered flight (with the flaps attached to the arms, this would seem to be relatively easy a leap), the extra weight wouldn't be a problem since it gave a huge new survival tool.

A note on brain size: According to Alyrium Denryle here, and I quote...

Allometric scaling is relatively easy in an evolutionary sense. In fact, changes in body size and proportions are some of the easiest things to evolve within certain physical constraints (like supporting tens of tons on land, or extreme miniaturization). The regulation is relatively simple and straight forward, so increasing brain size is an easy way to get higher cognitive ability. However, it is not energy efficient, and it leads to problems in giving birth. Pelvic size acted as a real constraint on the brain size of infants for obvious reasons. Additionally, the brain's energy needs are huge, and that energy might be used elsewhere. So, there is a good selective pressure to increase brain efficiency. That is not as easy though. The regulatory pathways for that are tied into other metabolic processes. So, this will take longer. However, it will lead to shrinkage in the brain pan, with no drop in cognitive ability, or even an increase.

Besides, we already have examples of animals with small but highly efficient brains. Birds and Monitor Lizards. Monitor lizards are smarter than most mammals, and they dont even have the structures that we normally associate with high cognitive ability in mammals.

So basically, getting bigger and smaller to be more powerful or less energy demanding is easy, but limited. Increasing power while staying the same size or even getting smaller is hard, but possible, and has been done before. With the twin needs of flight and intelligence, the selective pressures are there, all that's needed is time, and a bit of luck.

[CaptainChewbacca]

After millions (or hundreds of millions) of years, the only real traces of humans would be places where we've completely reshaped mountains. Mount Rushmore, the water marks of 3 Gorges Dam, those sorts of things. Also everything we've left on the moon would still be there.

[Akhlut]

Intuitively, I'd say the sheer scale of modern cities (and even just towns) would make the difference in leaving buried archaeological remains in perpetuity. Even if our cities were blasted to bits, with the largest chunks being only a few feet across (and this in itself is highly improbable) the layer of just materials, like metal and concrete, would be immense.
There's just so much of it that anyone who dug to that level would find it- and a lot of it- and there's no way to mistake it as being the product of natural processes.

How much would be left, though? Every city along a dammed river is going to see a lot of the products of civilization washed out to sea, where the smaller pieces are going to be dissolved/eroded and thrown around in the currents or buried under so much silt as to only be found by chance in a very long time. Cities by the sea, especially around the Ring of Fire, will be visited by tsunamis within a few centuries, almost guaranteed, and look what that did to Japan and southeast Asia within the last decade. To say nothing of fires, tornadoes, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other large-scale disasters.

Plus, let's not forget the much smaller scale things which would eat away at the edifices of humanity. When the windows in all the buildings break and the doors fall off of rusted hinges, what shall happen? All manner of wildlife will move in. Birds are notorious for shitting where they are sitting, and bird droppings are exceedingly acidic; they eat away at bridges to an insane extent and can ruin masonry. The same with bats. A few centuries of bird and bat guano can change the topography of caves, so I'd expect much thinner human constructions to be worn away much more quickly. Rodents will gnaw on a great deal of things, and rats can and will bore through concrete in their drives to tunnel to new places for safety and forage. Lichens will slowly wear away concrete and brick. Ivy and kudzu will plunge root systems into the tiniest cracks, allowing moisture to drive even larger wedges until exposed brick and metal finally break apart. Freeze-thaw cycles will shatter human constructions outside of the tropics into ever smaller pieces. The sun's light will thermo- and photodegrade all manner of plastics and will also cause enough thermal expansion and contraction to buckle a number of buildings being assaulted from all other natural fronts. Let's not forget termites and beetles and ants all gnawing away at the wood holding up many modern buildings that aren't skyscrapers, even a number of stone buildings.

So, aside from NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, a few hardened bunkers, a few copper-derived statues and "noble metal" items, and our most grand of stone statues built into the very mountains themselves, I'd say it's going to be hard to even recognize cities in a few million years if there is a period of 10,000 years or more where cities are abandoned.

And if there are still humans alive, around and scavenging who don't care for the history of the cities they pillage? I'd say the cities of old are doomed even more quickly and thoroughly as metal is torn out to be used again, stones pulled up to make new walls elsewhere, and wood repurposed for new homes or as heating.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Contrariwise, though, the civilizations of American Indians 1000 years ago lacked intensive metalworking and dozens of buildings made from concrete and steel that were hundreds of feet tall. There is a bit of a difference between modern constructions and those of people from hundreds or thousands of years ago.

True, but in the case of modern constructions we are talking about time scales greater by several orders of magnitude.

[cadbrowser]

Just to clarify (and I really do appreciate all of the feedback with regards to cities and what could possibly be left over after anywhere from a few thousand to a few million years), there is only a 2,000 year passing. I've been struggling with this and thus have removed any references the origins of my "bat-like" humaniods. I want them, they are pretty cool (in my humble opinion). Maybe they have been evolving for the last few hundred million years and they have decided to move into a new ecological niche?

But...you all are giving me wonderful ideas for another adventure game set millions of years in the future perhaps once I get finished with this one.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Here is a good Cracked article put up today about some recently discovered species that are pretty neat. Some good ideas for you, such as the rat-eating pitcher plant and such.

[Simon_Jester]

How much would be left, though? ...

So, aside from NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, a few hardened bunkers, a few copper-derived statues and "noble metal" items, and our most grand of stone statues built into the very mountains themselves, I'd say it's going to be hard to even recognize cities in a few million years if there is a period of 10,000 years or more where cities are abandoned.

And if there are still humans alive, around and scavenging who don't care for the history of the cities they pillage? I'd say the cities of old are doomed even more quickly and thoroughly as metal is torn out to be used again, stones pulled up to make new walls elsewhere, and wood repurposed for new homes or as heating.

I think we're talking past each other.

Your definition of "doomed" and my definition of "invisible" don't seem to be compatible or consistent with each other. To you, something is 'doomed' and 'unrecognizable' if it no longer exists in recognizable form; to me, something remains 'visible' if any reasonable scientist looking at the wreckage would likely deduce its existence.

Rock formations that grow at insanely slow rates over geologic timescales still continue to exist for long periods of time. They aren't dissolved by bird poop or chipped away by kudzu, at least not in a lot of places.

I would expect that a million years from now, some generic city (call it Metropolis) would take the form of a thick layer of iron-rich gravel and brick dust buried under sediment. There's nothing any normal person would think of as a building, and nothing archaeologists can analyze except variations on the theme of potsherds... but there are still millions of tons of rubble. It can't all get washed away rather than buried in situ, except in very unusual cases where a city is extremely exposed to wind and wave action (Manhattan might be an example; London isn't).

Granted, it's all unlikely to be found by a civilization that doesn't practice dredging, take seabed soil samples, or dig wells... but it's still there. Among other things, this is relevant to us today because the absence of such things is negative evidence, evidence against the existence of prehistoric human or nonhuman civilizations comparable in scale to that of the modern day.

[cadbrowser]

Here is a good Cracked article put up today about some recently discovered species that are pretty neat. Some good ideas for you, such as the rat-eating pitcher plant and such.

Ooooh..I'll check it out. Damn; can't at work..."cracked" is considered an offensive site...go figure! I'll have to remind myself to check it out at home.

[Cykeisme]

Ah, thanks for responding Simon_Jester.

Yes, that's what I meant.. I don't expect (xeno?) archeologists in a million years to be able to piece together our culture or architecture or anything, but the unusual, obviously non-natural composition of the strata should be unmistakable as the leavings of an intelligent civilization.

[Akhlut]

I think we're talking past each other.

Your definition of "doomed" and my definition of "invisible" don't seem to be compatible or consistent with each other. To you, something is 'doomed' and 'unrecognizable' if it no longer exists in recognizable form; to me, something remains 'visible' if any reasonable scientist looking at the wreckage would likely deduce its existence.

Depends on how much is there. Although most modern cities are built on the ruins of old ones, the older cities aren't going to really show up recognizably in the far future because most of their building materials have either already rotted away or make very little use of things that shouldn't be there naturally (smelted metals, plastics, etc.) However, the very thing that preserves those for us (being built on top of) assumably isn't happening in this scenario. So, the things which would give us away as an advanced civilization are going to be exposed to natural processes of erosion and decay for thousands of years, whereas our older cities were mercifully buried under tons of rubble as we strove to build cities on top of ruins. It's like looking for fossils in areas where they don't favorably form; doable, but so rare as to be nearly impossible to find (hence the dearth of chimp fossils from a million years ago, for instance).

Rock formations that grow at insanely slow rates over geologic timescales still continue to exist for long periods of time. They aren't dissolved by bird poop or chipped away by kudzu, at least not in a lot of places.

Most rock formations aren't havens for birds, or kudzu, either, and are generally much, much, much bigger than any human buildings. For instance, Devils Tower has a volume of roughly 69 million cubic feet, all of which is solid rock. Burj Khalifa, by contrast, has a volume of (best as I could find) 1.4 million cubic feet, of which a great deal is the space between floors. So, given that nature can produce structures an order of magnitude larger which are much more solid, it's not really a surprise that even all the pigeons in the world would not make nearly as large of a dent as they can to human made structures.

I would expect that a million years from now, some generic city (call it Metropolis) would take the form of a thick layer of iron-rich gravel and brick dust buried under sediment. There's nothing any normal person would think of as a building, and nothing archaeologists can analyze except variations on the theme of potsherds... but there are still millions of tons of rubble. It can't all get washed away rather than buried in situ, except in very unusual cases where a city is extremely exposed to wind and wave action (Manhattan might be an example; London isn't).

The problem is finding that evidence. Rivers will change course, which will be problematic for cities on rivers. I imagine Minneapolis/St. Paul, for example, will probably be washed away as the Mississippi floods over and over and over again over thousands of years, in addition to changing course over the rather pliable plains it flows across. Cities on the Great Lakes are going to be flooded over and beaten down by incessant wave action. All the cities in the largest river basin on earth, that of the Amazon, are going to be flooded out and overgrown by millions of plants. And so on. I think that most evidence is not really going to be there, necessarily. Especially if the fall of mankind is a rather slow denouement that sees us tearing apart our old cities for resources before we finally die out.

Also, London's right on top of a river, which does have some damming on it. The dams break, and a lot of London will be eroded away into the sea. In addition to the Thames changing course over time.

And there is the matter that the great majority of human civilization is right on top of water sources. The ocean and rivers humans build next to will wash away a great deal of evidence into the sea, where it will be broken down into unrecognizable portions. Anything and everything on the Pacific, for instance, will almost certainly be washed to sea at some point, due to all the vulcanism. We've had two major tsunami events in the past 10 years alone, and no reason to think that major tsunamis won't be occurring on a semi-frequent basis for the next thousand years. We also must think of wildfires (which will burn up anything made of petroleum products and send them into the atmosphere), tornadoes (occur worldwide and can obliterate smaller buildings and scatter their remains far and wide), earthquakes (which will break a lot of buildings into smaller and smaller pieces throughout time and allow for smaller pieces to be washed away with rain and snow melt), and so on and so forth.

About the only locations I can think of where major city presences won't be swept away into unrecognizable chunks in the ocean would be the Great Basin in the US (with Reno, Carson City, and Salt Lake City), any cities not on rivers in the Central Asian Steppe, and cities in the Outback that aren't in rivers. The cities in the Sahara might survive, but they also tend to be on rivers and will be sandblasted before being buried. So, that's a tough one. There might be a few cities which will be well preserved, but the vast majority will probably be so utterly washed away through simple weather and water action as to be nearly impossible to find, even if one knew what to look for.

Granted, it's all unlikely to be found by a civilization that doesn't practice dredging, take seabed soil samples, or dig wells... but it's still there. Among other things, this is relevant to us today because the absence of such things is negative evidence, evidence against the existence of prehistoric human or nonhuman civilizations comparable in scale to that of the modern day.

I think the absence of stuff on the moon is probably better negative evidence; the pure flux of earth's environment just wouldn't make something as insubstantial as cities like ours last enough to be seen as evidence.

Additionally, you have to think that if the layers containing what little detritus is left our cities emerges due to erosion (either like the badlands of North America, the Gobi in Asia, or areas exposed to the sea after millions of years) will be blown away or washed away, in all likelihood. And, if that happens four million years before an intelligent species evolves, they wouldn't have any evidence of our existence, either, outside of inferences from sudden (geologically speaking) appearances of animals where they aren't supposed to be (assuming they find good fossil evidence).

[PeZook]

Actually, guys...

If the species that comes to rule the Earth after us ever ventures into space, they will find so much crap there that it will be absolutely incontrovertible evidence of a previous civilizations existing at some point.

Hell, just the objects in lunar orbit will mean they'll start exploring the Moon and inevitably locate the landers, surface experiments and trash left there, and thus will have actual artifacts to study

[Akhlut]

Aside from the stuff actually on the moon, though, how much of that stuff is in an orbit stable enough to last for millions of years?

[PeZook]

Aside from the stuff actually on the moon, though, how much of that stuff is in an orbit stable enough to last for millions of years?

Much of the debris in solar orbit should last at least that long. You're right that lunar objects might not, because the Moon is not a very nice body to orbit.

You know what would be funny? If one of the small near-earth objects we're tracking turned out to be something like that