Simple question how much years history does the human population currently have access to?

How old is the earth?


Surely it's foolish to try and assume that there were no advanced civilizations before us?


just a thought

Roughly three billion or so years old.

It's approximately 4.6 billion years old.
The oldest human civilisation is the Sumerian. Sumer civilization dates to the mid-4th millennium BC, until the rise of Babylonia in the late-3rd millennium BC. Noted for invention of the wheel, amongst other ground breaking achievments. It is the first settled society in the world to have manifested all the features needed to qualify fully as a "civilization"

Considering our understanding of Geology, based on current findings in digs, the fossil record and written records it is foolish to consider that there was an advanced civilisation before us. Proof is to the contrary. Remember, the Dinosaurs had the place all to themselves for 165 million years.

itd be sweet if there were more intelligent life forms while the dinos were around. but they just got wiped out with them and the meteor.
however, i assume we would have found something by now it that was the case.

Too right. We have found evidence of the Dinosaur era, something would exist, fossil, tech, structure something. It seems ridiculous that a civilisation could propogate and flourish and then quietly vanish without trace.

6 to 10 thousand years old.

The more technically advanced a society is the less it leaves behind. It's pretty obvious that our paper will not last thousands of years after us the way stone monoliths to. Our roads are in constant need of repair, unlike many Roman roads which are still around. (I've heard that some are still in use!). My house in south Georgias hot humid climate will not last as long as the adobe homes built in the desert.

Part of it is the building material and part of it is the enviroment. Indian arrow-heads can be found all over the place but, a remnant of pepper spray? Maybe more advanced weapon like directed energy? Even our garbage is for the most part, buried in land fills. Not as easy to come across as stone tools left laying on the ground or bones in a campfire.

Let's not leave out the fact that prehistoric human bones are a rare find. We do find them but, generally only in very specific places. Not a lot in the way of old indian bones turning up in the Georgia swamps. We know they lived there because we killed them out and sent the survivors to Kansas! Still, there is not a lot left of that culture that was here only a couple of hundred years ago. Also, we are presuming that they have bones like ours. Sharks are mostly cartilage. Octopi are concidered fairly high on the intelligence scale but, have only a beak that could be expected to survive the body.

Of course, without hard evidence, you have a hand full of wishful thinking. (Wish in one hand, **** in the other, see which one fills up first). Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. It is, however, a pretty strong argument against it.

A good earthquake and a couple hundred years of the survivors picking the old homestead clean of usable material won't leave a lot to be found. Now, concider the same series of events happening to YOUR house...

So many people don't know the time of the earth. According to Britannica it is 4.5 billion years old when life starting at 3 billion years and animals starting at around 1billion years humanoids being 1.3million years

Really!!
In your avatar, you don't look it.

As such, an industrial revolution must have taken place. You dont go straight to pepper spray, you use arrowheads first.
Any technology requires fashioned parts, some would be experiments, dumped, lost junked. Everything goes through a trial stage.
We have fossilised leaves, even footprints, no tech has shown up. I a aware of the amount of homnid relics found, in fact, if you piled them all together you would barely fill the back of one pickup truck. That is not true for fossils, you can buy them at your loacl city centre, on the internet, heck, I've seen them at the local flea market. Evidence of earths history is abundant, relics from a past civilisation are not.
If footprints can be found after 3.5 million years, I think it very hard to believe not one piece of fashioned ancient tech would not survive. A T Rex has been unearthed that had soft tissue in the femur. 65 million years, and still we found it, preserved.
A civilisation also relies on communication. Some sort of transcript would have survived, if anything, and advancd race would have some sorrt of a timecapsule, nobody would want to be forgotten. The whole idea makes no sense, I feel that absence of evidence in this case is indeed evidence when one considers the amount of evidence we have entailing earths history.

Getting that technology sure leaves a trail. If it happened to my home, well, I have a lot of white bricks, I reckon one would survive.

O rly?

Yeah, nobody can say with undoubted 100% accuracy the exact age of the earth.

It sounds like Britannica is in line with all other reliable sources though.

Our species would never have been able to evolve alongside such a dominant species as the dinosaurs. The only time in the history of the earth we could have evolved was when we did. Remember, our idea of "civilisation" really started about 10,000 years ago, which conicides with the end of the ice age. It would have been impossible before then.



Ya rly.

It is my understanding the current human population is about 100,000 years old.

There is a view that on earth there will be seven battles between light and dark energy. We are currently in the 4th battle. The prior three were won by dark energy and that resulted in human extinction to some extent. This 4th battle has already been won by the light energy. They will also win the next three battles. That last battle, number 7, may also be won by the dark energy. So one may ask how can the light and dark energies both win in the end. That could happen if they learn to live in harmony with the other.

What exactly would the Divine plan for earth be like and how might it unfold? Does any one other than myself actually think about things like this?

John

4.5 billion. Earth is young. O.o

But it's true. How exactly people forget there were advanced civilisations back then. the way people forget is like, everything, everyone, everywhere went kaboom in the same time and we directly went back to square one.

did we, somewhere within the timeline, had a global amnesia phenomena?

nowadays it turned out, we are rediscovering what ancient civilisation knew already during their time, like batteries and medicine

It could be possible that a race was starting to evolve to become advanced during the dinosaur era, like im not saying full out civilization just maybe something like our ancestors running around with sticks and lil hay huts, maybe a race did exist, we just never found them yet, its always a possibility just probability is the problem

Actually, this did happen. The mysterious Neandertal race.
Before that Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis co-existed.

HA, that better be a joke.

Humanoids did not evolve alongside dinosaurs. The dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Paranthropus boisei appeared 2.6 million years ago.

Would that be the 'age of aquarius?'
It was tough but finally the light won...we beat the Hippies! yah.

Dunno what you're snortin' John, but chance you could send me some?

Nah you're getting confused, that was Raquel Welsh in '1 million years B.C.' (the special effects had me fooled for a while).

...or were you just distracted by the bear-skin bikini?

jeez....you got me sussed havent you..

I didn't so much forget this as never learned it happened.
What early advanced cultures were there (besides the Olmecs in the The Mysterious Cities of Gold)?

--Jaylemurph

Yep 100% correct.

A misunderstanding

I didn't notice the Dinosaur era bit there in Conspiracy's post I was referring to any homnids before sapiens were left. WAY past the Dino days.

Good pickup

Baghdad Battery for instance. modern batteries are "invented" during the 1780s.

there are others but that's all could think of atm. I rmemeber reading about some articles and wonder, geez... how come they didn't get pass down?

The Baghdad Battery is an artifact from a known civilisation. That's a far, far cry from suggesting previously unknown, highly advanced civilisations existed and very wooly thinking indeed.

And there are lots of reasons thing might not get passed down -- look up Hero's Aeropile. It was a fully functional steam engine invented in first Century CE Alexandria. Surely they would have passed that on, right?
Nope. There simply wasn't a practical use for it, not when it was difficult to build and there was plenty of slave labour, anyway. Ditto for the Battery.

--Jaylemurph

neither the less, there should be at least documented somewhere, insteda of leaving places like them aztec pyramids and such deserted just like that.

Hodge podge. Things like cut metal, titanium, concrete, etc. are artifacts that get left behind and are very noticeable. Ask any anthropologist, whats easier to find traces of a pre-farming civilization or a bronze age civilization. Very rudimentary societies use very rudimentary tools and technology that is not very long lasting.

*coughs discretely
Except for the Pyramids.
Or Stonehenge.
Or Tiahuanaco.

--Jaylemurph

This is true, but we have no frame in which to compare the survivability of modern day artifacts with those of old. I also was not implying that the egyptians were using rudimentary tools or had a rudimentary society. I know its a anthropocentric nightmare to attempt to judge or rank societies, But meant a comparison of say bands of hunter-gathers vs a chiefdom of advanced agrarian towns. The latter, is more technologically advanced and will undoubtedly leave better artifacts than the former.

Sorry for the confusion

Edit: To clarify more, Rudimentary does not mean old, lost, extinct or early societies. I was referring to how a society treats stratification of its members and how it finds/obtains substance.