I've been trying out git subtree and I understand it's advantages. But I've wondered if there's a way to use it without adding the merge commits to the timeline

I've been trying out git subtree and I understand it's advantages. But I've wondered if there's a way to use it without adding the merge commits to the timeline when I update the subtree repository. Something similar to what git rebase does. (Maybe this is a dumb question and I'm not using git subtree right) :)