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Perhaps because I recently read Jared Diamond's book Collapse, I've been wondering just how lasting humanity's impact on the world has been. If we were to disappear today (say, due to a rampaging disease rather than some sort of violent catastrophe) and a civilization of intelligent cockroaches[1] rises in our place (or even just human survivors rising again), how much time would have had to pass for them to not realize that we'd been here? I'd say that a thousand or even ten thousand years is way too short a time (heck, the Pyramids will probably still be around that long). I'd guess that a billion years would be enough (wouldn't most of our continental material have been entirely re-made by then?). But that leaves an awfully broad span to narrow down in the middle.
Of course, the question is considerably more subtle than what I've described. For starters, I can think of three parameters to vary that would have a clear impact on the answer: (1) Time between our civilization's collapse and the rise of the next (as described above), (2) Technological level of the observing civilization (some traces such as skyscraper skeletons would be blatant signs, while others might require more advanced science to find: radiation levels or ice core analysis of other pollutants come to mind, or happening upon the US flag on the Moon), and (3) Point in our history when we disappeared (if those cockroaches were in our place today, would they realize that the Neanderthals were intelligent? Will any such signs be left a million years from now?). There are certainly even more factors to consider than that, but these three seem like a bare minimum.
I have a habit of wondering what we'll leave behind when and if we go, or how we could preserve our knowledge and a hint of our culture against catastrophe for future societies. (That's why I quite enjoyed Orson Scott Card's book Pastwatch, even though it's not that high on my list of "good" books.) But of course, this line of thinking also raises the natural question, "How many other times might intelligent life have arisen on Earth in the past that we just haven't noticed?" After all, who's to say that we aren't the cockroaches?
[1] All named "Squa Tront", for some reason.
Of course, the question is considerably more subtle than what I've described. For starters, I can think of three parameters to vary that would have a clear impact on the answer: (1) Time between our civilization's collapse and the rise of the next (as described above), (2) Technological level of the observing civilization (some traces such as skyscraper skeletons would be blatant signs, while others might require more advanced science to find: radiation levels or ice core analysis of other pollutants come to mind, or happening upon the US flag on the Moon), and (3) Point in our history when we disappeared (if those cockroaches were in our place today, would they realize that the Neanderthals were intelligent? Will any such signs be left a million years from now?). There are certainly even more factors to consider than that, but these three seem like a bare minimum.
I have a habit of wondering what we'll leave behind when and if we go, or how we could preserve our knowledge and a hint of our culture against catastrophe for future societies. (That's why I quite enjoyed Orson Scott Card's book Pastwatch, even though it's not that high on my list of "good" books.) But of course, this line of thinking also raises the natural question, "How many other times might intelligent life have arisen on Earth in the past that we just haven't noticed?" After all, who's to say that we aren't the cockroaches?
[1] All named "Squa Tront", for some reason.
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