Question for the floor

[andrewducker]

So, how long in the past would a previous civilisation of, say, Mesopotamian levels have had to be for their to be no remaining sign of it? i.e. for any bronze tools to corrode away to nothing, pottery to do likewise.

How long will it take until Stonehenge is worn down to nothing by the wind and rain?

Comments

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think it would depend on the conditions and the history. Some physical conditions preserve features much better than others. History has a role to play too. Lots of Roman cities are identifiable because post-Roman people took over their sites and built on top of them, preserving them as layers of different cities, whereas more of the Archaic Greek stuff was just destroyed in their Dark Age. Ish.

Also what you define as traces. Do you want to be able to describe aspects of the day to day lives of individuals or do you just want to be able to say somebody who was civilised but different from what is here now used to live here?

[andrewducker]

I'd like to be able to show that there was once a city on a particular spot. That's about it. The discussion started elsewhere about whether a civilisation from the last interglacial (110,000 years ago) would leave any traces that we could actually spot.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

A civilization from the last ice age might actually be harder to identify than one from the interglacial. Consider that during ice ages the sea levels recede in some areas (ice sheets push down on the underlying strata, causing non-covered areas of continental shelves to rise; also, less water in the oceans). So you'd expect the most fertile soil to be found in the low countries such as Doggerland or what is now the Arabian gulf -- where they'll be inundated when the ice age ends.

Also: if they primarily use wood and metal, rather than stone implements, and baked clay for buildings, they'll disappear a lot faster once they're underwater.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I guess that inundation could be the cause of all of the flood stories that occur in so many myths and legends (I imagine that's a quite common thought amongst people studying such things).
I wonder how many likely candidate areas have been searched under water for ancient stone settlements. Maybe not the easiest things to find or getting funding to look for.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think if it were under the ice there would be nothing left. The glaciers would strip everything back to what archaeologists call the natural or down to bare rock.

If it's not under the ice there should be a good chance of anything big enough to be a city leaving some traces tho' to my knowledge non have been found.