What will be the last vestige of the human race?

Loren Booda

What will be the last existing vestige of the human race?

How shall it compare to the first such evidence?

Will it be characteristic of humanity in general?

tribdog

wouldn't it be cool if the last vestige was a hard drive somewhere that only contained PF general disscussion threads. Whom ever finds it will think that humans were very romantic and poetic...and horny. and yes it will be characteristic

Loren Booda

How about radioactive dump sites?

Carbon dating is often done on artifacts in prehistoric campfire locations.

Thermonuclear destruction may be ultimately representative of man's brutality toward man and the means to our end.

Moonbear

That was one thought that crossed my mind. The other was styrofoam food containers.

Ivan Seeking

Voyager 2.
Of course "The Sounds of Earth" and pictures were included.

Smurf

A weapon of some sort most likely, I can't immagine us going out without a fight, a fight against outselves.

matthyaouw

Probably an obscure layer of sedimentary rock that for the time being I will call "cementstone" left at the quaternary-whatever comes next unconformity. I've often wondered what sort of confusion we would cause to the geologists of the future if they weren't aware of our presence or level of development. Lithified landfills would be a good one I imagine, with mountains of fossilised polystyrene food containers and suchlike. Or am I thinking a little too far ahead?

poolwin2001

If they could understand English.

franznietzsche

Yes, that is likely to outlast anything left here on earth. Yay!

Tsu

Pampers.

Andromeda321

I don't know why but the first thing I could think of was that Arthur C. Clarke short story where the reptiles on Venus find a few artifacts left on frozen Earth (anyone read that one?). In it the thing that ends up being the icon for the rest of time for humanity was a Walt Disney movie.

jcsd

In years to come super-intelligent horse archaeologists will be digging in the Antartic, by that time will be desert, and they willl uncover a box made out of syntheitc polymers containing a shiny circular disc. In the box there will be an aged but legible inlay card which will depict an two upright ape creatures,one hloding a wooden musical instrument, across this picture will be wetitten the legend: "Spaced Out: The Best of William Shatner and Leonrad Nimoy". LOOK UPON MY WORK YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR!

Loren Booda

jcsd,

How about a disk by Ozymandias Osbourne?

Dayle Record

The travelers came from afar, they heard the tell tale sounds of our demise, they gathered up the junk from the outer planets and moons, and threw it onto the larger debris ring whose increased size is the only evidence of the ex third planet of this solar system. Attempts to adjust the planetary orbit had caused a breakup, just after the collapse of the lunar gravitational relationship. The moon had simply reattached to Earth after a disastrous attempt to create lunar spin to accommodate more consistent lunar solar energy generation, and overall warmth for the mining operation. The last vestiges of the human race were to be frantic calls for help sent out into the galaxy, and the eerie ring of radio emissions, a gradually growing cosmic donut of sound broadening to rebound like soft summer wavelets off the edges of our universe, Bah dah, bah dah, I wish they all could be California girls....

Gokul43201

An eight track with a single sentence recorded on it in a gruff, Eastern European sounding voice :

"This is the President of the greatest kaahntree on the plaahnet, and such things as this...aah'll be bakh"

Chi Meson

How about billions of inch-long tan fibrous thingies that are absolutely everywhere. Upon inspection they will all be found to contain a deadly poison. Evidently, this civilization tried by various methods to poison itself and everything else with nicotine.