Stated Clearly presents: Did Dinosaurs
Ever Live Alongside Humans?
Before digging in
it's probably worth noting that for the
same reason scientists consider
humans to be mammals, they also consider
birds to be dinosaurs. Birds are
currently placed within the dinosaur
clade. With this in mind, the answer to
our question is: Yes
Just look around outside and you'll probably
spot a dinosaur in less than a minute.
That said, here we want to know about the
big ones. Dinosaurs like T. rex
Triceratops and Stegosaurus. We even want
to know about some of their non-dinosaur
comrades, creatures like pterosaurs and
plesiosaurs. In the 1933 Film King
Kong, an island is found, filled with
dinosaurs and other magnificent beasts.
The movie, of course, was just fiction but
today there are enthusiasts who claim
that dinosaurs are either still alive in
remote regions of the world, or that they
recently went extinct and that ancient
people once lived alongside them.
Could this really be? Well, according to
what we know about biology and evolution
it is technically possible. Coelacanths
and crocodiles for example have been
around since the time of the dinosaurs
and modern forms do still exist.
Coelacanths were even thought to have died out
with the dinosaurs until a living
population was recently found. Even
though it may be possible, as of now
there is no solid scientific evidence
that dinosaurs ever lived at the same
time as humans. Science can be described
as the collection and documentation of
observable facts, and an ongoing
discussion about how those facts can be
best linked together into explanations.
This means that if you want to make a
scientific claim, first you need evidence!
What kind of evidence would qualify? Well...
Photos and eyewitness accounts might
help get individual researchers
interested, but these things are not
convincing to the scientific community
at large. Photographs are just too easily
faked and eyewitness accounts are often
well-meaning but inaccurate.
If you really want to be convincing, what
you would want to find are things like
human and dinosaur bones fossilized in
the same rock layer, better yet a fresh
dinosaur carcass (though
please don't kill a dinosaur if you ever
find one, they're very rare)
best of all, capturing a live specimen!
Unfortunately so far, all claims of human
and dinosaur fossils alongside each
other have either proven to be hoaxes or
misinterpretations. The same is true of
rotting corpses thought to belong to
dinosaurs or plesiosaurs
(the one on the left here is actually a
beach killer whale, on the right here is
a basking shark with it gills and jaw rotted away)
the same is true of ancient human
artwork claimed to be depictions of
dinosaurs. So far as we know, with the
exception of birds, the only place to
find a dinosaur is in the fossil record.
So what does the fossil record tell us?
As volcanoes form mountains the erode
into dust ,and as ecosystems grow and
then die, layers of sediment slowly build
up on the face of the earth
eventually becoming sedimentary rock. As
a result of this normally slow sediment
build-up, different sets of rock layers
represent different time periods in
Earth's history. The further down you go
the further back in history you travel.
Plants and animals that died and were
buried in these sediments are sometimes
preserved as fossils. Using multiple
lines of evidence: chemical composition,
radiometric dating, the orientation of
magnetic particles, and the presence of
certain well study fossils, scientists
have been able to create geological maps
showing which layers of rock in one region
or continent correlate with specific
layers of rock in other regions or
continents. These maps now allow us to
look at fossils all around the globe and
study the history of life in
chronological order. In these studies
dinosaurs appeared to have evolved from
an early group of reptiles called archosaurs.
This happened during an antient
time period known as the Triassic. Moving
up through the layers, dinosaurs evolved
into many forms during the Jurassic, and
dominated the earth until the end of a
period called the Cretaceous.
Many species of primitive mammals also
evolved alongside dinosaurs at this time
but no apes and not a single human
fossil has ever been confirmed in rock
layers nearly as old as the Cretaceous.
Throughout the history of life, five
major extinction events can be clearly
seen in the fossil record. These are time
periods were almost all life-forms
abruptly disappear, leaving only a few
surviving groups to evolve and
repopulate the planet. One such event is
found at the end of the Cretaceous and
marks the demise of all non-bird
dinosaurs. Changing sea levels and
intense volcanic activity seem to have
weakened dinosaur populations leading up
to the extinction, and then catastrophe!
At the top of the Cretaceous is a
distinct line known as the K-Pg boundary.
Chemical analysis suggests that one or
more massive space rocks struck the earth
at this time, producing a global dust
cloud that devastated life on our planet!
Recently, the discovery of a 110 mile
wide crater, now buried under sediments
in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, confirmed
this idea, and tells us that the comet or
asteroid could have been over six miles
in diameter!
While a few dinosaur populations may have
survived a short while after, it was only
groups of smaller animals that managed
to hang on long enough to repopulate the
Earth. Among the mammals that survived
one group eventually gave rise to apes,
and finally, in the set of rock layers
known as a Pleistocene, fossils
representing modern humans can be found!
So to sum things up, did dinosaurs ever
live alongside humans? While it is
hypothetically possible, all verifiable
evidence that we know of, tells us that
the answer is no.
With the exception of birds,
dinosaurs died out in a catastrophe near
the end of the Cretaceous. According to
radiometric dating, the time gap between
the extinction of the dinosaurs and the
evolution of modern humans is nearly 66
million years. I'm Jon Perry and that's
what we currently know about the
extinction of the dinosaurs Stated
Clearly.
This animation was partly based on two
of Dr. Darren Naish's books: 'Dinosaurs
How they lived and evolved', and 'Hunting
Monsters' both of which I highly
recommend. If you'd like to see more
about the claims of humans living
alongside dinosaurs, check out our video
on the discovery of soft tissue found
inside dinosaur bones. I also recommend
the work of fellow youtuber Trey The
Explainer:
Hello there guys, Trey the Explainer here,
on my channel you can learn about the
many corpses people have mistaken for
dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, and other
monsters; impressions once claimed to be
human footprints among Dino tracks; a
proposed Stegosaurus carving in an ancient
Cambodian temple; and other fascinating
claims! This animation was paid for by
our viewers. If you'd like to see more
consider supporting us at patreon.com/statedclearly
so long for now, stay curious!