Could early man have competed with the dinosaurs?

Here's a question. Say humanity had, by some miracle, evolved at the same time as the dinosaurs. I have serious doubts about humans being able to face down Cretaceous Tyrannosaurs with sharpened sticks. And those things may have moved faster than we think; certainly faster than a group of humans. On the other hand, tyrannosuars were only in the North American regions, weren't they? On the other hand there are things like Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus which are even larger than T-Rex. And then you've got things like raptors, tricerotops... hell, can you imagine trying to take down a diplodocus? Incidentally this might have led to the ballista being developed early; as a hunting weapon.

Thoughts?

Seeing as early man already competed successfully with lions, I don't think the problem is as bad as you think.

Were humans ever in competition with terror birds? Because they seem pretty similar to dinosaurs.

No way, those birds went extinct 2 million years ago, while the earliest modern human remains are dated at 160,000 years ago. Humanity as we know it is Newer Than They Think.

The arrival of stone age man inevitably heralded a massive die off of most all large animals in the area. Again and again we have shown that anything larger than a horse gets to eat shit an die the minute the skin wearing primitives show up. Carbon records show that early man had a fondness for setting shit on fire and driving large animals to their deaths.

Also, our major advantage compared to most animals is endurance as much as our tool use. There is no animal on the planet that is a more powerful distance runner than a human.

So, yes... early man could have competed with the saurial species.

Ancient infantry developed phalanx tactics whereby they would line up with 30 foot pikes, five rows deep, sticking out past the first row of men. Lets see T-Rex get past that.

Would not the T-Rex be the only that poses a threat since it got a ridiculessy thick skin?

Bows didn't come around to comparatively later. Atalatl spear throwers were the height of most early weapons. And a t Rex has thinner skin than say a mammoth. Mammals in general have better hides than reptiles. Turtles of curse omitted. Anyways, there isn't a skin on earth that can stop a spear.

edited 27th Feb '11 7:40:07 AM by Shrimpus

Why would a T-Rex even hunt Man? Wouldn't it have more substantial prey to eat?

I thought about that. A spear wound and a comparatively tiny mammal is not a great reward for a massive bipedal lizard.

The real problem are the armored dinosaurs, esp. the Cerotopsians. Those guys may be unstoppable, at least from the front.

Weren't they basically just giant rhinos?

I mean, a rhino's pretty dangerous, but they don't appear to have wiped us out yet.

edited 27th Feb '11 8:55:10 AM by BobbyG

Velociraptors would own mankind and become the new supreme life-form.

^Can be stopped with a wall of stakes and a spear if taken from the front. On the other hand, raptors are a lot faster than humans. The group of humans would have to be very sharp. I think raptors would be the greatest threat to humans. On the other hand, humans set fires and might sneak up on the raptor first. Or even move through the trees ape-style and shoot or lob things down at the reptiles.

edited 27th Feb '11 9:14:58 AM by GameChainsaw

They're the size of a turkey, sure they're fast, but they're basically the same niche as foxes, which are pesky, but have never been an existential threat for humans.

edited 27th Feb '11 9:28:07 AM by Roman

I think there would be a real problem with humans living alongside dinosaurs.

I forget the whole science explanation, but isn't there some supposition that the resources on earth couldn't support so much megafauna, and that's why mammals didn't evolve bigger than rodents until dinosaurs went extinct?

Well, humans tend to cause the extinction of other animals because they can't compete, and because we tend to alter habitats in a way that renders them less habitable for other large organisms.

I imagine raptors would be more dangerous than foxes. Wolves occupy that same niche, and they're not exactly a laughing matter.

The biggest raptors were human sized. But in the end, intelligence prevails. We can learn to predict their behavior better than they can predict ours.

edited 27th Feb '11 9:35:11 AM by DeMarquis

Hmm, come to think of it, humans have driven a fair amount of predators toward extinction.

That being said, if humans hunted dinosaurs/raised them for food then maybe things could work, although I'd figure you'd require the kind of bountiful plant-life that existed at the time dinosaurs lived in order to support both humans and dinosaurs.

Not sure if this thread was inspired by Order Of The Stick, but I can't really see how you could keep dinosaur stables in a desert like the Empire of Blood- guess it depends on the number of dinosaurs.

edited 27th Feb '11 9:36:59 AM by Jordan

In responses to above:

1- Ceratopsians were appearently like giant pigs. They could eat meat every once in a while. A human being would be just about the right size to be eaten by a Triceratops.

2- I'm pretty sick of people overestimating Velociraptor. It was a turkey size, solitary small predator; at best, it would be as dangerous as a buzzard (except it would not be able to fly, sadly).

3- If we existed alongside dinosaurs, most large dinosaur species would almost certainly disappear. Modern Africa has lost seven species of ELEPHANTS, 3 species of SABER TOOTHED CATS, giant tortoises, moose like giraffes and many hippo species all thanks to us. And America almost lost nearly everything bigger than a deer (bisons, bears and moose are recent immigrants from Asia).

edited 27th Feb '11 11:06:20 AM by GayJesus

I thought veloceraptors hunted in packs. But, if that's still not enough for you, I raise you UTAHRAPTOR!◊ They're way bigger, and most definitely were not solitary.

Did somebody say moose?

@zoulza: Currently there is no direct indication that any dromeosaur was a pack hunter. The closest thing to evidence is a bunch of Deinonychus and footprints, but the first could be a case of a group of scavengers and the later could just be two raptors walking together for whatever reason.

Obviously, there could be one species that hunted in packs, but pack hunting is usually not favoured by nature. Only one bird species hunts in packs, after all.

This is fun. Homo Sapiens Sapiens could have competed with the dinosaurs. The other subspecies and members of our genus...not so much. So it wouldn't have happened, but it's fun to think about. And it would be close. Eventually, though, I think our ability to build defensive structures would let us protect ourselves pretty well.

Plain old dinosaurs? Let's make the interesting. Laser-breathing cybersaurs... from space!