What if Humans Are NOT Earth's First Civilization? | Silurian Hypothesis

What if Humans Are NOT Earth's First Civilization? | Silurian Hypothesis

From PBS Space Time by PBS

May 3, 2026 · 26 min

About this episode

The episode explores the possibility of pre-human industrial civilizations on Earth through the lens of the Silurian hypothesis.

Enjoy 10% OFF and free worldwide shipping on all Hoverpens with code PBS: North America & other countries: https://bit.ly/pbs_novium UK & Europe: https://bit.ly/pbs_noviumeu To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime We’re almost certainly the first technological civilization on Earth. But what if we’re not? We are. Although how sure are we, really? The Silurian hypothesis, which asks whether pre-human industrial civilizations might have existed. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime Search the Entire Space Time Library Here: https://search.pbsspacetime.com/ Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Christopher Pollack & Matt O'Dowd Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini & Stephanie Faria Directed by Andrew Kornhaber Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing…

People in this episode

Host: Matt O'Dowd

Topics covered

  • Silurian hypothesis
  • pre-human civilizations
  • technological civilization
  • Earth's history
  • humanity's future

Keywords

  • Silurian hypothesis
  • civilization
  • technology
  • Earth
  • human history
  • pre-human
  • industrial

Sponsors

Hoverpens

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: PBS, Kornhaber Brown

Products: Hoverpens

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