Evolved organisms may have lived on Earth before humans

According to the team of researchers, by studying sedimentary layers, we can answer the question of whether there was another advanced civilization on Earth before mankind.

Who are you, doctor? The series features a technologically advanced race known as the Silurians who ruled the Earth long before humanity existed. However, after a while, they are forced to hide and remain undetected until the protagonist appears in his iconic phone booth.

Two scientists from Cambridge University were inspired by the story. In their research, they are not primarily interested in the existence of a civilization alien to humans on our planet (in their opinion, the chances of this are small), but can we reveal the geological traces of a technologically advanced society from which millions of people disappeared? years ago.

The study Published in the Journal of Astrobiology. According to the authors, the key question is how often advanced civilizations emerge.

The only known example is man, whose industrial civilization began about 300 years ago. It’s only a tiny fraction of the time we’ve existed as a species, and only a fraction of the complexity of life on Earth. Based on this short period, the question arises whether a similar process may have occurred before the emergence of man. – It cites researchers IFL Science Science Portal.

Answering this question may also help in the search for possible advanced alien civilizations on planets beyond the solar system. The study indicates that humans have left significant marks on the planet in a relatively short period of time, altering Earth’s climate and ecosystems. However, this does not mean that changes are still detectable after millions of years.

In fact, the geological footprint we leave may be a few centimeters thick.

Sure, the longer our civilization lasts, the bigger the mark we leave, but long-term survival requires sustainability. A sustainable society leaves a small footprint, so there will be fewer geographic signs of its presence in the future.

Some of our traces become indistinguishable from natural processes over time, but there are also signs that point unmistakably to humanity; Like pollution from plastic or nuclear war.

In the study, the research team did not answer the question of whether ancient advanced civilizations existed before us.

Instead, they suggest that if they once lived, we can find traces of them by examining the elemental and compositional anomalies of the sediments.

The authors strongly doubt that we can find signs of an earlier advanced civilization on Earth here, but the findings will be useful for astronomical and anthropological research.