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So I want to write a novel set in a primal world with Dinosaurs. The humans live in tribes with stone tools. Unfortunately, I am not sure if they can survive at all in such a setting.

is it possible for stone age humans to survive in such a world. What are some methods they can use to evade carnivores

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Worldbuilding SE! Please take a moment to review the help center and tour. They'll give you a good idea what this forum is about and what kinds of questions are allowable. Your question is way, waaay too broad. Please edit and focus on one single problem or issue! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Dec 21, 2018 at 1:49
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    $\begingroup$ Chicken are dinosaurs; specifically they are avialan maniraptorans, a branch of the coelurosaurs. Real-life tribal humans raise chicken. Therefore we know that in the real world tribal humans do quite well in a world with dinosaurs. Even if you mean non-avian dinosaurs, many of them were herbivores, most of them were not that big at all, and quite a few species were really small. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Dec 21, 2018 at 2:22
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    $\begingroup$ Imagine continent where dinosaurs gone extinct for some reason, so mammals were able to develop/evolve and so are humans. Then few hundreds billions years later, tectonic plates moved and 2 continents were joined together (one with humans and other species without dinosaurs, another with dinosaurs) $\endgroup$
    – llamerr
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Renan I edited the question to make it specific. $\endgroup$
    – Sam Joseph
    Dec 21, 2018 at 19:22
  • $\begingroup$ @elemtilas I edited the question to make it specific $\endgroup$
    – Sam Joseph
    Dec 22, 2018 at 19:18

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Natural evolution and migration should cover this nicely.

Simply put, people will migrate to where there is no giant man eating dinosaurs. Humans can survive larger climate variations compared to dinosaurs. So what would happen is people would simply avoid the areas where the man eaters are, just like the avoid the places where our current man eaters like lions are.

To take this in a fantasy angle, humans will train dogs and raptors (not like Jurassic park) to help them hunt and stay safe.

This article provides some somewhat silly, but maybe helpful reading. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/dinosaurs-humans-coexist-jurassic-world-paleontology-science/

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Actually, I'm pretty sure that human tribes with this little technologie would survive. Humans developed a special perk which made them sucessful in evolution: Empathy. This ability makes them look out for each other and work as teams, as well as enabling them to tame other species. So tribal humans were quite good at surviving. Also i think there were enough equally dangerous animals around back in the stone age. Maybe even more dangerous. While Dinosaurs themselves where often pretty mighty, "newer" predators like wolves or large cats where smarter, faster and equiped with better senses than the dinos. In my opinion, the biggest threat would be the Raptor-like Dinos and flying predators. But a spear should be a decent weapon to fight of Raptors. "Survival of the fittest" is how evolution works, not "Survival of the strongest." The Human ability to adapt to environment, even with very basic technology is not to be underestimated.

Those inhibitors you mention are still an possible addition, but i don't think they're necesarry.

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    $\begingroup$ Empathy is not special to humans only if you talking about mirror neurons en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron . Many animals such as wolfs or lions work as a teams. $\endgroup$
    – llamerr
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:20
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    $\begingroup$ As a team, yes. Caring for other species, no. There are very few animals where such behavior has been observed, mainly Dolphins and tamed/bred species. The Mirror-neurons are no human-specific thing, but the amount of impact to the behavior is. $\endgroup$
    – miep
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:29
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, for caring it's probably unique in scale that big as it is now, but it may have started same way as it appears for other species now. Humans just had a lot longer time to evolve that caring into something bigger, while other species didn't have that option. No one was probably thinking to breed cats or even care for them at first. They just lived together as symbionts, same way as birds helping crocodiles with their teeth. $\endgroup$
    – llamerr
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:36
  • $\begingroup$ Also true, but i think there still is a difference between symbionts and taming. While both have positive effects on the involved species, the relationship differs: The symbiosys is an effect of equal interests, while taming implements some kind of hierarchy. This gives the taming "symbiont" an advantage over the tamed. $\endgroup$
    – miep
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:44
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    $\begingroup$ On a similar thought - ants use farming phys.org/news/… and taming aphids gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/pests/insects/… . Also I read somewhere that either ants or termites use some fungus. Also ants known for using "slavery" on captured ants from different families. Thought I doubt many people will say that they are intelligent. So symbiosis may evolve to something high level. See Peter Watts' Blindsight on that topic. But it's far beyond my knowledge to discuss this any further I think. $\endgroup$
    – llamerr
    Dec 21, 2018 at 13:51
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The most obvious ways is tree houses which are out of reach of the worst of the predators and barricaded caves where perhaps the entrance requires sliding on your belly through a small gap.

The use of traps to kill predators means humans could still be on top. Lions and tigers are faster and stronger than humans and will happily eat someone but yet humans have driven them to the extinction point.

Humans are smart and through planning, even with stone age tech, could take down any dinosaur.

The real threat to humans would be other humans.

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