Questions tagged [archaeology]

For questions about excavation of past species and civilizations, on Earth or an alien world. Topics include the actual science of archeology, information gleaned from the fossil records, and longevity of civilization artifacts.

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49 votes
12 answers
9k views

When will the last unambiguous evidence of mankind disappear?

Humanity just disappears tomorrow, let's say it is like the Thanos-snap but it kills everyone. How long until the last unambiguous evidence of our existence disappears? What was this last relic? The ...
TheDyingOfLight's user avatar
35 votes
5 answers
5k views

Destruction by design - how best to go about crafting a ruined landscape?

Ruins of many kinds are a staple of stories whether for games or tales of high adventure. My question is about the design process behind such structures: should one start with a city or building and ...
Ash's user avatar
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59 votes
23 answers
8k views

Killing off Indiana Jones

Watching Indiana Jones movies for some time got me wondering how you can effectively kill the explorers to your temple after a long time. How can I prevent explorers from stealing my artifacts for at ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
39 votes
24 answers
9k views

If dinosaurs had a civilization, how primitive must it have been to leave no trace in the present?

I am thinking of, yes, a simple story with intelligent dinosaurs, but I am not interested (And I sincerely prefer) that they are not sufficiently advanced in my history to be comparable to modern ...
Invasor's user avatar
  • 533
18 votes
6 answers
3k views

Signature of destruction - does tearing down a building leave noticeably different ruins to natural decline?

As a follow on from Destruction by design - how best to go about crafting a ruined landscape? I'll be asking two questions about signature destructive patterns, this is the first: How, if at all, ...
Ash's user avatar
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14 votes
9 answers
2k views

What will remain from an eco-friendly civilization after 10,000 years?

Let us assume that about 10,000 years ago there was another human civilization, that was quite similar to humanity. Physically they are humans. The state of development of this civilization is quite ...
vodolaz095's user avatar
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14 votes
9 answers
2k views

Ancient temple booby traps designed for dragons

I grew up watching the Indiana Jones and enjoying the creative death traps and Indy outsmarting them. What what about dragons? So this is for a potential novel dealing with a dragon civilization. The ...
Jacob Badger's user avatar
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7 votes
4 answers
1k views

Signature of destruction - energy weapons

As an additional follow on from Destruction by design - how best to go about crafting a ruined landscape? I'm asking some questions about signature destructive patterns. This is the second one, the ...
Ash's user avatar
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6 votes
7 answers
2k views

Humans get knocked back into the stone age; would archeologists from 10,000 years in the future be able to tell that we existed?

I am inspired by Dr. Robert Schoc's hypothesis that the Great Pyramid and Sphinx date back to a lost civilization from 10,000 BCE. The Question: Suppose an asteroid/mega solar flare/etc. reduced ...
Ovi's user avatar
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5 votes
7 answers
17k views

Could an intelligent civilization have existed on Earth before humans? [duplicate]

And more importantly, how could we not know about it? I remember hearing that most of our man-made monuments and buildings will have completely collapsed in a few thousand years, so is it possible for ...
Z.Schroeder's user avatar
  • 11.3k