Are Humans the First Civilization? The Silurian Hypothesis

there are over 7 billion people living. on the earth right now tens of millions. are born and die each year every single. one of us leaves signs of our existence. in the air water soil even space but. these signs won't last forever our. buildings will be gone in a few hundred. years our stone monuments plastic. styrofoam twinkies even evidence of our. inevitable nuclear destruction will. eventually be gone so how can we be sure. that we were the first advanced. civilization on earth well according to.

the silurian hypothesis. we can't let's find out why. [Music]. let's talk about the silurian hypothesis. what the hell is a solution well they. were intelligent humanoid reptilians who. in an episode of doctor who were. awakened by nuclear testing after 400. million years of hibernation blizzard. people yep we're finally doing a lizard. people episode we are. well kinda humans are selfish it's hard. for us to imagine that in a very short.

time we as individuals won't be here and. it's even harder to imagine a time where. our civilization won't exist at all but. if we learned anything from archaeology. it's that every civilization has its. time think about ancient egypt they. lived 30 dynasties that spanned over 3. 000 years and if you were an egyptian. living during this time. generations of your family going back as. far as anyone can remember walked in the. shadow of the pyramids they fished the. nile they sailed the mediterranean. mingled with other cultures as far as.

you or anyone knew your civilization had. been there and would last forever. then it was gone the mesopotamians. before them the indus after them greeks. nubians the persians romans incas aztecs. these were empires of millions of people. all lasting a thousand years or more but. very little evidence of them remains now. all of these civilizations including our. own modern one have only been here for a. short time complex life has existed for.

hundreds of millions of years modern. humans have only been here for about 100. 000 years our entire history has taken. place in the past. 0.002 percent of life on earth so. there's a whole lot of past in the past. and that's plenty of time for other. intelligent species to evolve thrive and. go extinct over and over again with. different species. and if that happened would we really. know they were here when adam frank and. gavin schmidt wrote the silurian. hypothesis they addressed a lot of.

misconceptions about how we study the. past we're used to the idea that we. learn of ancient societies by examining. artifacts and excavated ruins. but this really only works if you're. going back a few thousand years but when. you want to go back millions of years. it's more complicated for example the. earth is about 4.5 billion years old and. complex life appeared about 600 million. years ago fine but the oldest surface. land ever discovered is the negev desert. in israel it's about 1.8 million years.

old that's it. every other piece of exposed land we've. ever found is newer than that so. where'd all the land go. [Music]. if ancient civilizations existed before. humans they could be very hard to detect. because of the earth's plate tectonics. today's mountains are yesterday's ocean. floor new land is formed every day as. old lands are eroded into dust that's. why discovering fossils is a lot more. difficult than people think very. specific conditions need to be present.

for fossilization the organism needs. hard body parts like bones teeth and. shells the remains need to be quickly. covered and protected from scavenging. and erosion you need high pressure for. mineralization and low oxygen to prevent. decomposition this almost never happens. dinosaurs roam the earth for about 180. million years. trillions of individual animals lived. and died yet we only have a few thousand. near complete fossils it's estimated. that over two and a half billion.

tyrannosaurus rex's lived and died on. the earth but fewer than 100 fossils. have ever been found and only one of. them is complete that means we've only. discovered 0.0000. zero. zero four percent of the species. now schmidt and frank said that a. species as short-lived as homo sapiens. might not be represented in the existing. fossil record at all now the current. area of urbanization is less than one. percent of the earth's surface so human.

artifacts like road cities machines even. mega structures would last only a few. thousand years and are unlikely to ever. be found. they conclude that direct evidence like. this can only go back about 4 million. years even if the entire human race were. eliminated by a nuclear war the. radioactive evidence would disappear. eventually so are there other methods. for detecting the existence of advanced. intelligent life in the distant past. turns out there are. [Music].

civilization at least as defined by the. authors of the silurian hypothesis is. where industrialization occurs on a. global scale as ours does now as we. speak industrialization is leaving clues. of our existence that will be detectable. by scientists a hundred million years in. the future now eventually our time on. earth will be crushed down to nothing. more than a thin layer of rock sediment. yeah that's uplifting now in a. sedimentary core a layer of a few.

centimeters is deposited every thousand. years and in those centimeters future. paleontologists will find evidence of. our geologic era called the anthropocene. now for example we grow so much food now. that our use of fertilizer is actually. redirecting the planet's nitrogen supply. and this nitrogen cycling is also. changing its isotopic signature and this. isotope will be detectable in the. sediment agriculture and deforestation. increase soil erosion and that erosion. washes into the sea and becomes part of. the sediment a human mining activities.

have increased the amounts of gold lead. chromium platinum and other metals and. these also will be visible in the. sediment at greater rates than before. but the element that will really tell. the story of civilization is carbon. humans conquered the planet by. harnessing combustion and it seems. reasonable that intelligent life forms. everywhere would do the same thing when. we burn the tissue of long dead plants. fossil fuels we change the ratio of. isotopes in the atmosphere and this is. called the seuss effect the green omelet.

guy differences yeah carbon comes in 15. flavors but the most common isotopes are. carbon 12 carbon 13 and carbon 14. carbon 12 is light carbon this is the. isotope preferred by plants and used. during photosynthesis and animals that. eat plants consume the plants carbon-12. and animals that eat animals that eat. plants consume their carbon-12 and so on. now volcanic emissions are carbon-13. carbon-14 is radioactive and decays. predictably over time fossil fuels have. no carbon-14 at all and as we burn more.

fossil fuels the levels of carbon 13 and. 14 go down while the level of enriched. carbon 12 goes up all this carbon in the. atmosphere also causes the earth to warm. slightly. what global warming is a myth it's not. sheep. look you can argue that the warming is. man-made or that it's not but either way. we're up about a degree. anyway when looking through sedimentary. layers from millions of years ago this. is what we need to see to determine if. there was an advanced civilization.

present we need to see a large but. temporary spike in carbon and oxygen. a large but temporary spike in metals. and a large but temporary spike in. global temperature. we find that. we're on to something have we found that. have we. we have and it happened 56 million years. ago the age of the lizard people. [Music]. a sudden global change of carbon and. oxygen isotope levels happened 56. million years ago in what's known as the.

paleocene-eocene thermal maximum or. p-e-t-m and the p-e-t-m only lasted. about two hundred thousand years now. that's nothing in geologic time but. remember that's as long as we've been. here and during this time the petm the. earth's temperature rose about six. degrees celsius now that was warm i mean. we're talking t-shirt weather at the. north pole warm i mean the ice caps were. completely gone lizard people do like. warm weather. what lizard people are cold-blooded. hello read a science book there there.

were no lizard people. so is the p-e-t-m evidence of an ancient. civilization yep. probably not it took 5 000 years to. reach the level of carbon in the. atmosphere that we've done in only 300. years so what caused it nobody knows. the best guess is the petm was caused by. a massive volcanic eruption but nobody. knows for sure. what's weird though is there is evidence. of a lot of fossil carbon in the. atmosphere lazy people gas stations and.

a few million years later these. conditions happened again and this event. is called the eocene layers of. mysterious origins sounds like the name. of a harry potter book it does and there. were other massive events in the. cretaceous period that depleted the. earth's oceans of oxygen for thousands. of years now to be honest most. scientists believe that we are the first. civilization but they do admit that if. an advanced species only existed for as. long as we have they would be really. hard to detect even the authors of the.

silurian hypothesis admit if you're not. specifically looking at the right time. in history and for the right details. you'll probably miss it but the silurian. hypothesis does give us an interesting. set of tools tools that might not help. us find ancient civilizations on our. planet but could help us find them on. other planets. the drake equation is a well-known. formula for estimating the number of. extraterrestrial civilizations in our. galaxy it boils down to the number of. stars that have planets the number of.

planets that can support life the. fraction of those planets that develop. life and the fraction of those that can. develop intelligent life now this number. fluctuates as new discoveries are made. but still the number of civilizations. out there could be anywhere from 150 000. to 1.5 billion even if it's just more. than one it would be so cool so cool. what's interesting is now that we had. the silurian hypothesis any planet that. can develop intelligent life can maybe. develop it again and again over millions.

or billions of years and that was the. original premise of frank and schmidt's. paper they wondered not only about life. on other planets in the galaxy but about. civilizations that may have existed. right here in our solar system at one. time mars was much wetter and much. warmer so was venus one of jupiter's. moons europa is covered by a saltwater. ocean when we finally get core samples. from these planets we may realize that. those civilizations don't exist there. right now the distant past could tell a. very different story now the authors of.

the silurian hypothesis don't believe. there are ancient civilizations on earth. for humans and our civilization may be. unique in the universe but they do lay. out an exciting possibility that there. could be millions of civilizations out. there and now we have the tools to find. them. [Music]. thank you so much for hanging out with. us today my name is aj that's hecklefish. this has been the y-files if you had fun. or learned anything do me a favor and. like subscribe comment and share trying. to solve the youtube algorithm is like.

trying to discover ancient civilizations. lazy people. but with your help. we can do it until next time be safe be. kind and know that you are appreciated. [Music]. [Music].

you.