Would humans have been able to survive during the age of the dinosaurs?

Question

Both in terms of the environment itself (air content, temperature, food supply etc) and the dinosaurs who might have seen humans as prey?

What would the USA or UK have looked like back then? And how common were dinosaurs on the landscape- would you have seen a dozen T-Rex in a day or one a year? Would the larger dinosaurs have been like pigeons now, with hundreds everywhere you look?

What might a hundred-mile hike across dinosaur country have been like? Would a modern-day hunting rifle or shotgun have been adequate protection for a small party of campers?

Serious answers only please- thanks!

Answer 1

I think some would survive but most eaten.Then we would know how animals feel to be slaughtered only we would at least have a chance to get away.

Answer 2

Modern humans are kick-butt animals compared to anything. They invent technology and strategy very rapidly, and can colonize anywhere on Earth.  Antarctica, the Amazon rain forest, the Sahara, you name it, we're there.  A properly equipped small group would have good chances. By properly equipped, i mean that they knew where they were going, what they were going to do there, and brought stuff accordingly.

Let's say your party goes to Northern Alaska prepared.  A polar bear takes interest - slow food.  One of the guys fires his shot gun in the air.  The polar bear instantly understands that this isn't your usual slow food.  But should the bear make another attempt, it is no match for a high powered rifle.  Humans are so overwhelmingly powerful that they can show mercy, and use a tranquilizer gun.

A breeding population - say 10,000, would almost certainly survive as a race.  They'd find or build structures for protection, probably farm and hunt.  As hunters, they'd be totally unstoppable.  They wouldn't have to wait for evolution to make them survivable.

They wouldn't even have custom parasites, unless they brought their own.  You know, lice and such.  Lots of diseases would be missing too.  These things have to evolve to use a new species as a host.

Humans would be able to eat - once they figured out what isn't poisonous.  If anything, there was more oxygen 65+ million years ago.  That'd be fine.

The idea that humans couldn't cope with sabertooth tigers or other megafauna 10,000 to 20,000 years ago is laughable.  These were modern humans.  Just about the instant it warmed up a little, they built pyramids.

Answer 3

No - nobody would have been able to survive because when an asteroid hit the earth, it released tons of energy and particles of dust which made it very cold and is what led the dinosaurs to extinction. Nobody could have survived it.  

Answer 4

no beacuse their would be no food to eat and the dinosaws are carnivors witch means they eat meat and then we woild be picked off so their are none off us left.

Answer 5

Um, weren't there humans when the dinosaurs lived? They were called cavemen

Answer 6

I think we'd have a good chance of surviving. Who knows, we could even domesticate some dinosaurs and use them for labour or defence, like people used horses and dogs.

Not all dinosaurs were carnivirous, and not all of them were big. There were plenty of herbivores ranging from camel-sized to chicken-sized.

You wouldn't want to go for a swim though, chances are you'd probably get eaten :)

Answer 7

Have you seen prehistoric park?

First off, you need to specify a time and a place. The dinosaurs lived for a VERY long time and hence, the climate and environment changed greatly over that time. The place is also important casue at some points, there was volcanic activity where toxic gases choked some areas. Also it would be very hot in some places and very cold in others. generally it ws hotter though cause dinosaurs were everywhere and they were reptiles.

I don't think humans would be able to survive.They have lost all basic survival insticts, predators were everywhere, and it was very hostile terrain. In short, if you invent a ime machine, don't go back to the age of the dinosaurs.Go to the reinasaunce instead. ( I know I can't spell.)

Answer 8

Suitti gavea good answer, so a few more points.

Dinosaurs were about for a -long- time.  From sometime in the Triassic, all the way through the Jurassic and all through the Cretaceous. Of course the actual species present changes as species evolved and became extinct.During this vast swathe of geological history there have been considerable environmental changes, during much of the Cretaceous for example golbal CO2 levels were high, global temperatures were high, and global sea levels were high, - large parts of europe were shallow seas and ther was an extensive sea in the middle of what is now the USA. Where I live ( Eastern UK) in the middle jurassic the environment was subtropical with low lying coastal deltas subject to periodic flooding. Dinosaurs walked ther, I have collected their footprints (for a museum)

As Suitti says, humans are **VERY** versatile and could have survived in lots of places.

Would you have seen lots of the large predator dinos? Probably not as this is basic ecology, you do not get lots of -any- large predator but there were smaller predatory dinos that would be a nuisance to human sized prey too. Remember that our distant ancestors, smallish mammals would be about too, not a great threat there though :-)

There is certainly some evidence that some types of dino, e.g. some sauropods moved in herds, which would be an impressive sight ( from a safe distance). Dinos sat at the top of a large, complex ecosystem, so ther would be everything from beetles (and some pretty big dragonflies) to big, dangerous non-dino predators such as crocodiles. Rivers would teem with fish, the air would buzz with insects, and, in the later part of 'dinotime' the dinosaurs feathery cousins, birds would be flitting about.

Remember that flowering plants (in the strict biological sense) did not come on the scene till late on in the long stretch of time Dino's were about, and definitely no grasses so lots of ferns, conifers, cycads, ginkoes and, certainly in the mid-jurassic environment I am familiar with, lots of horsetails. This might make finding edible plant food a little difficult.

How a T Rex or a hungry Allosaur would react to a bunch of apes with sticks that got *BANG* is pretty hard to predict.

The BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs" and some background reading on paleoenvironments would be a good start.