# You are transported back to 70 million BCE **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335 "2025-07-25T21:33:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/21 "2025-07-26T09:36:55Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > How did you get transported back when you were responsible for the extinction of the nascent human race? Different timelines. There is no single ‘the’ future from any point in time - at least one would hope not, because if that was the case, we’d all be robots locked in to our destinies while believing we have free will. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/22 "2025-07-26T11:47:31Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > ideally in a titanic not-Tesla Truck Maybe not a Cybertruck, but wouldn’t an EV be the only viable option? Bring some solar panels and you’re set as long as the battery can be re-charged. By that point, hopefully, you’d have set up some kind of compound and defence. Ideally, you’re also close to sources of saltpeter and sulfur. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/23 "2025-07-26T12:25:02Z")
Good walls make good neighbors. And there are other ranged weapons that would be easier to maintain and restock than a gun. A sling shot and/or spears, probably. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/24 "2025-07-26T12:47:55Z")
70 million years: No companions? No chance at even mid-term survival, no matter what you bring along. 20,000 years: Make friends as soon as you can. Who knows? You might become your own great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle. Bring some booze and perhaps recreational drugs, the kind that make people sociable and friendly. And a book on how to do things, or even better, how to get others to do things for you. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/25 "2025-07-26T12:50:53Z")
Something sustainable to decontaminate water, bug spray, some way to make fire that doesn’t involve rubbing sticks together. Plus an armored vehicle with solar cells. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/26 "2025-07-26T12:59:37Z")
What are the building materials like? Were there tall straight woody trees back then? Was everything like palm trees? What would you make your bows and arrows out of? The walls of your palisade? (Or you will spend a long time making mud bricks) The thing that made humans an apex predator was their ability to plan and coordinate group hunts. If you’re going to do this, some companionship would be useful. Where you land up matters. I had a chat once with a Canadian dinosaur expert who was presenting about the climate back then. Dinosaurs would migrate up the shores of the central sea from Texas through Alberta to the arctic forests. With a warm arctic, the tropics were excessiely hot. The larger dinosaurs we focus on were in the termperate zones. In the tropics, their size was limited by the ability to shed heat, and typically the larger dinosaurs were those ones with giant sails for dorsal fins (i.e. spinosaurus) to disperse their body heat. (Some debate if dinosaurs were partly or fully warm-blooded) ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/27 "2025-07-26T12:59:54Z")
Ah, yes! And a glass bottle of coca-cola, to bury it carefully where a paleontologist will find it. Make it several, to be on the safe side. Perhaps build some pyramid around it? Make it conspicuously inconspicuous and durable. Those will be nice conspiracy theories in the future! ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/28 "2025-07-26T13:00:53Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And there are other ranged weapons that would be easier to maintain and restock than a gun. A sling shot and/or spears, probably. I’m not thinking handguns. Making bullets and barrels (not to mention rifling them) necessitates forges and specialized tools. But with gunpowder, one can blow stuff up. 💥 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/29 "2025-07-26T13:14:56Z")
I tried making gun powder as a kid. Or really, my father tried and i helped. It fizzled. And we started with chemicals that someone had already purified. Maybe bring some explosives in your starter kit, but don’t expect to make useful explosives once you are there. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/30 "2025-07-26T13:15:48Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I wouldn’t want to live just on eggs, but I suppose it’s not a terrible choice. Modern reptile meat carries various parasites and bacteria. Croc meat and snake need careful preparation to be safe, but if you can manage a barbecue rather than a campfire that should be readily resolved. You can do like the neighbours and [go all Neanderthal,](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/25/neanderthals-feasted-maggots-science-nutrition) retaining meat until it maggot-infested and then tuck into them as another source of nutrition. Not quite the same but other insects and their larvae are food sources for many non-western cultures. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/31 "2025-07-26T13:17:24Z")
Hmm, i wonder if the maggots are safer to eat than the meat. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/32 "2025-07-26T13:48:47Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > But with gunpowder, one can blow stuff up. 💥 Paging @Tripler ! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/33 "2025-07-26T14:48:10Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Ideally, you’re also close to sources of saltpeter and sulfur. Even better if there are no Gorns nearby. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/34 "2025-07-26T15:02:07Z")
Can you fashion a rudimentary lathe? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/35 "2025-07-26T15:17:19Z")
70 Mya is too early to tame my own cute little Eohippus, so I’m not interested. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/36 "2025-07-26T15:20:09Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > Modern reptile meat carries various parasites and bacteria. Croc meat and snake need careful preparation to be safe, but if you can manage a barbecue rather than a campfire that should be readily resolved. I’d expect that theropod meat is more like bird meat than like croc or certainly snake meat. And that includes small fellas like Sinosauropteryx, it doesn’t mean you’re hunting T rex. [![](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources/nature-online/life/dinosaurs/dinosaur-directory/images/reconstruction/small/sinosauropteryx-ml.jpg) ](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources/nature-online/life/dinosaurs/dinosaur-directory/images/reconstruction/small/sinosauropteryx-ml.jpg) Actually, if we’re 70 million years ago, then there is a rich variety of true birds, including waterfowl. Some of them might have more teeth than you’re used to, but they’re still birds. [![](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/ichthyornis-jaime-chirinos.jpg) ](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/ichthyornis-jaime-chirinos.jpg) [![](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-1500w,f_auto,q_auto:best/msnbc/Components/Photos/050125/050125_dinobird_vmed_9a.jpg) ](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-1500w,f_auto,q_auto:best/msnbc/Components/Photos/050125/050125_dinobird_vmed_9a.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/37 "2025-07-26T15:25:06Z")
If I can manage clean water, fire, and protection from predators, I suspect I can manage food. Of course, I take various meds that are going to expire, even I can bring a supply. So my time is limited. But hey… I expect to spend hundreds of hours practciing my slingshot skills. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/38 "2025-07-26T15:26:54Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > ![](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/ichthyornis-jaime-chirinos.jpg) I can just hear those guys shouting “Mine! Mine! Mine!”. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/39 "2025-07-26T17:55:02Z")
Oooh ooooh, I _ **knew** _ my Spidey senses were tingling for a reason!! Kinda perusing this thread, my question, based on their biology is: would even _modern_ small-arms fire (SAF) be effective against dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period? Tripler I don’t need an answer fast . . . ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/40 "2025-07-26T18:04:27Z")
I’d be gone in a heartbeat. My very first thought was, “Which of these leaves can I safely use to wipe my tender ass?” I’m not suited to traveling back in time any further than about 100 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335.md?page=3)