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It more convincing to look at it the other way. It's not what such civilizations would have left, but what they would have taken. Our early civilizations foun

It more convincing to look at it the other way. It's not what such civilizations would have left, but what they would have taken. Our early civilizations found easily accessible deposits or tin, copper, gold, etc that would have been depleted if another advanced civilization had existed in the past 10 million years or so.

ksdale 6y ago
"Depleted" in this case would just mean mined, transported, and made into something. It doesn't seem farfetched to imagine that, say, an electronics factory would be reduced to an easily accessible deposit of copper or gold in a few million years.
- nitwit005 6y ago
  It depends how long the civilization is around. A lot of metal could end up impractical to mine. You can recycle metals, but little chips are being lost to wear and corrosion over time. We're slowly spreading small amounts everywhere. Some of that would be theoretically be recoverable with a lot of effort and energy, but some of it will basically be gone. No one is going to get back small bits of metal fallen off ships into the deep ocean.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Tin was actually very hard to find. Which is a huge problem for civilizations that wanted to be a part of the Bronze age. Most of the tin used in Europe and western Asia was mined from just a few places in England, France, and Spain. if you find an Assyrian weapon from the 12th century BC in northern Iraq, it shouldn't surprise you if you find it was forged with tin mined in Cornwall.
- 74ls00 6y ago
  IIRC tin was one of main motivating factors for the Roman invasion of Britain
cozzyd 6y ago
Oil, especially, would probably be less common if there was an ancient industrial civilization.
- yxhuvud 6y ago
  If there was one involving humans, sure. Involving dinosaurs (or earlier)? No. Oil is constantly reforming and the oil we drill today wouldn't have formed back then. Sure, we suck it up a LOT faster than the replenish rate or the rate of natural reintroduction of fossilized carbohydrates into the circulation, but over geological timespans oil has a best-before date. Eventually there will be fissures (due to land movement or erosion) and it would end up being released onto the surface in one way or another.
lazyjones 6y ago
> Our early civilizations found easily accessible deposits or tin, copper, gold, etc that would have been depleted if another advanced civilization had existed in the past 10 million years or so. Perhaps they also found remains of other advanced civilizations and axploited those? 10 million years is nothing in geological terms.

ksdale 6y ago

"Depleted" in this case would just mean mined, transported, and made into something. It doesn't seem farfetched to imagine that, say, an electronics factory would be reduced to an easily accessible deposit of copper or gold in a few million years.

nitwit005 6y ago
It depends how long the civilization is around. A lot of metal could end up impractical to mine. You can recycle metals, but little chips are being lost to wear and corrosion over time. We're slowly spreading small amounts everywhere. Some of that would be theoretically be recoverable with a lot of effort and energy, but some of it will basically be gone. No one is going to get back small bits of metal fallen off ships into the deep ocean.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Tin was actually very hard to find. Which is a huge problem for civilizations that wanted to be a part of the Bronze age. Most of the tin used in Europe and western Asia was mined from just a few places in England, France, and Spain. if you find an Assyrian weapon from the 12th century BC in northern Iraq, it shouldn't surprise you if you find it was forged with tin mined in Cornwall.

74ls00 6y ago
IIRC tin was one of main motivating factors for the Roman invasion of Britain

cozzyd 6y ago

Oil, especially, would probably be less common if there was an ancient industrial civilization.

yxhuvud 6y ago
If there was one involving humans, sure. Involving dinosaurs (or earlier)? No. Oil is constantly reforming and the oil we drill today wouldn't have formed back then. Sure, we suck it up a LOT faster than the replenish rate or the rate of natural reintroduction of fossilized carbohydrates into the circulation, but over geological timespans oil has a best-before date. Eventually there will be fissures (due to land movement or erosion) and it would end up being released onto the surface in one way or another.

lazyjones 6y ago

> Our early civilizations found easily accessible deposits or tin, copper, gold, etc that would have been depleted if another advanced civilization had existed in the past 10 million years or so. Perhaps they also found remains of other advanced civilizations and axploited those? 10 million years is nothing in geological terms.