Did dinosaurs and humans coexist at the same time? What if dinosaurs and humans actually got along?
Answering this question is not simple. The overwhelming weight of the evidence up until recently pointed to the absence of coexistence between humans and dinosaurs in the same location and at the same time. Some people contend that there is no concrete proof of humans coexisting with dinosaurs in the fossil record. However, some contend that, in a formal sense, birds coexist with humans today since they are the offspring of dinosaurs. Additionally, data from a 2023 study casts doubt on this argument.
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How Long Did Dinosaurs Live?
These are really reliable data. The non-avian dinosaurs were extinct 66 million years ago, most likely as a result of an asteroid striking Earth and wiping out a significant portion of the planet’s life. Nearly all large organisms and the majority of small ones were included in this.
Following this, a comparatively small group of animals—the mammals—was able to leave a far bigger mark for itself. These were the animals that would eventually give rise to humans, following a great deal of evolutionary development and roughly 60 million years separating us from the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
Timeline of Humans and Dinosaurs
Our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, and humans had a shared ancestor that split into two groups approximately six million years ago.
One of them would eventually lead to humans, but not before going through a variety of intermediate hominin groupings. It is currently believed that modern humans first emerged about 300,000 years ago, which is more than 65 million years after the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.
Did Dinosaurs and Humans Coexist at the Same Time?
However, as you may have already noticed, not all dinosaurs became extinct. Probably a theropod species, birds are descended from some of the few dinosaur species that survived the end of the Cretaceous period.
Thus, technically speaking, birds are still with us now and are considered dinosaurs. Therefore, it is not entirely absurd to think that people and dinosaurs may coexist.
Dinosaurs are fed to us, kept as pets, and they graze on our beachside snacks. However, just as humans have diverged greatly from our 66 million-year-old animal predecessors, so too have birds.
Fresh Data Supports the Coexistence of Dinosaurs and Humans
According to a 2023 study, before the dinosaurs were wiped out by a large asteroid strike, early mammals—including the progenitors of humans and placental animals like dogs, rabbits, and cats—coexisted with dinosaurs. This finding casts doubt on earlier theories regarding the order of mammal evolution and indicates that mammals survived the extinction of the dinosaurs to give rise to the diversified mammalian kingdom that exists today.
The identity of a well-known fossil called Brasilodon quadrangularis, which some scientists believed to be an ancient mammal, is also called into question by this study. The research highlights the difficulty of recognizing ancient species from the fossil record by arguing that it might not be a mammal but rather an early mammalian relative. In the end, paleontologists and researchers come to the conclusion that 66 million years ago, early mammals—the progenitors of modern humans—coexisted with dinosaurs.
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According to a 2023 study, before the dinosaurs were wiped out by a large asteroid strike, early mammals—including the progenitors of humans and placental animals like dogs, rabbits, and cats—coexisted with dinosaurs. This finding casts doubt on earlier theories regarding the order of mammal evolution and indicates that mammals survived the extinction of the dinosaurs to give rise to the diversified mammalian kingdom that exists today.
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