Ancient Raptor Civilization

[Alex K]

The other day under the shower, I suddenly wondered: birds are pretty smart, and there are reasons to think that older theropods were pretty smart as well. It took us a measly 5 million years to go from pre-chimp to the smart assholesapes we are today.

Could there have been at least a primitive civilization of smart theropods somewhere between 200 and 65 million years before Jebus, of which we see no obvious trace today? By civilization I mean at least making tools, building houses, maybe language or writing, etc.

[TubbyTubby]

Interesting thought. I seem to remember reading that one of the reasons we have evolved to our current stupidity is because we managed to stand upright thus freeing a pair of limbs to do stuff with instead of walking on them.

The T Rex has those tiny little arms, I can imagine him playing piano with them.

[Alex K]

Interesting thought. I seem to remember reading that one of the reasons we have evolved to our current stupidity is because we managed to stand upright thus freeing a pair of limbs to do stuff with instead of walking on them.

The T Rex has those tiny little arms, I can imagine him playing piano with them.

Or the world's smallest dinosaur violin...

but there were dromaeosaurs etc. with plenty big arms.

[Lucanus]

Hardly... Most of our civilization stems from the way mammals take care of their offspring, and even among mammals we humans are kinda unique in the way we stay attached to our families even after reaching adulthood. That's the way a culture is formed: the passing down of habits and customs through generations.
It's not even having your arms free that makes such a big difference; one can look at kangaroos for example.
The way we have evolved is the result of our arboricoral ape ancestors, who needed a brain big enough to process the risky jumps from branch to branch, adapting to the environment of the savannah, that resulted in them having to outsmart their opponents rather than to 'outclimb' them, if you will.

Parental care has never been observed in reptiles, with the possible exception of birds who need to teach their offspring how to fly, but lack the limbs necessary to the creation of a human-like civilization. And while dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than to modern reptiles, I really can't remember one example of parental care among them.

Anyway, I suppose that if there actually was a 'Silurian'-like race of intelligent reptiles before the mass extinction, we would find some fossils with a bigger cranial capacity than the average dinosaur.

[Exian]

Would this be a fossil we haven't found yet, or are we talking among the fossils we know about: could they have had some civilization?

If its about dinosaur fossils we don't know about, we could just insert any type of advanced creature.

If the thought is about creatures we do know about, wouldn't we be able to make some assumptions based on brain to body ratio and skeletal structure?

I will say you're brave for posting this. I would talk myself out of it for fear of being ripped apart by you monsters. I had a somewhat similar thought recently...kind of: You always read sci-fi books or sci-if movies about what life we might find on another planet. What would it mean if we find out it just a bunch of life we've already seen depending on what "period" the planet is in?

[Alex K]

Would this be a fossil we haven't found yet, or are we talking among the fossils we know about: could they have had some civilization?

No no, it would definitely be some branch we haven't found yet. We know a tiny fraction of species that have ever lived, and many might have lived in conditions where no fossils are formed in the first place. Just recall that we have barely any fossils of our related great ape lineages.

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Parental care has never been observed in reptiles, with the possible exception of birds who need to teach their offspring how to fly, but lack the limbs necessary to the creation of a human-like civilization.

Well there you go
Take that, but consider a lineage which hasn't evolved real wings, thus keeping the fingers free to work.

I'm not a paleontologist obviously, but I've heard several talk who have adapted the convention "birds are dinosaurs".

[Exian]

Ok, well this is fun. Lets think about it. Lets figure out what would have had to have happened (did I say that right?) for this to have occurred, but be erased. What are some factors that would go into this creatures existence and extinction?
• evolution
• plate tectonics
• disaster
• atmospheric conditions
• time

What else? Am I going to far off the deep end here? I feel exposed.

[Alex K]

disaster covers a lot of ground. General climate change might work, or sudden climate change from volcanic activities.

[Exian]

What about its origin? Is there a problem with a whole unknown branch of life developing from amphibians or reptiles that we don't know about? And what of the atmospheric conditions; what can that tell us of the type of life that could have possibly been facilitated?

[Lucanus]

Parental care has never been observed in reptiles, with the possible exception of birds who need to teach their offspring how to fly, but lack the limbs necessary to the creation of a human-like civilization.

Well there you go
Take that, but consider a lineage which hasn't evolved real wings, thus keeping the fingers free to work.

I'm not a paleontologist obviously, but I've heard several talk who have adapted the convention "birds are dinosaurs".

The problem with this is that it is thought that birds have developed parental care as a result of their feathery flappy flight. Most other dinosaurs simply dumped their eggs as casually as shit to subsequently bury them to protect them from predators, and that was it.

Most of the bipedal dinosaurs we know of were carnivorous and used their 'hands' mostly for their long sharp claws, which kept them from needing -let alone being able to- produce tools. Our ability with hands comes from the fact that they were originally adapted to grasping branches and in fact our most common tools are just like that: sticks with something on them.

Not to mention lonely times. I'm very good with my hands.