The most direct legacy that we can leave to future geology is that of our own mortal remains. Today, in reconstructing the long-vanished Jurassic landscapes, we put the mighty, charismatic dinosaurs square in the foreground. This focus we have—well-nigh a fixation—seems to us almost self-evident. Were they not the rulers of their empire, just as we are of ours, literally bestriding their domain as colossi of scale and blood and bone? Their skeletons, avidly sought, intensely studied, painstakingly reconstructed in museum displays, are the symbols of those times, iconic, mesmerizing. Might we not hope for similar awe and reverence from our future excavators? There is no guarantee, of course, that these as yet unborn explorers of a future Earth will share this perspective. Perhaps their focus will be on what, among all the diverse living inhabitants of this planet, is most important in preserving this living tapestry. They may well regard the myriad tiny invertebrates, or the bacteria, of the world as much more important to that (in planetary terms) rare phenomenon, a stable, functional, complex ecosystem. If these future explorers took this view, at the risk of off ending what little there might then remain of our amour propre, they would have a point. Take away the top predator dinosaurs, and the Jurassic ecosystems would have been a little different, to be sure, but no less functional. Take away humans, and the present world will also function quite happily, as it did two hundred thousand years ago, before our species appeared. Take away worms and insects, and things would start seriously to fall apart. Take away bacteria and their yet more ancient cousins, the archaea, and the viruses too, and the world would die. But, let us imagine our excavators as being, in true science fiction style, just as obsessed with their relative position in the food chain as we are. Let us assume that, in their excavation of the Earth’s history, they will be looking for the power brokers of the ancient past, that they will be digging for bones and bodies.
Research on the socio-economic niche of villages in rural complex ecosystem
