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Once the human species dies out, how long will the things we leave behind exist for?

If intelligent life beams down on our planet millions of years in the future, long after the demise of the human species, will they know that we were ever here? What, if anything, might they find that tells them that human life had existed? And how are we so sure that there wasn't an intelligent civilization on Earth millions of years ago?

That's what listener Steve is asking. To find answers, presenter Caroline Steel unpacks the Silurian hypothesis, which suggests that there might have been intelligent life on earth in the past. Is the fossil record really enough to prove otherwise?

She also meets researchers looking at the technofossils we're creating and leaving behind right now, including the plastics which will easily outlive us. She dredges up evidence that our modern age is changing the geological record forever by creating a new global epoch.

Join Caroline on a deep dive into the geologic forces of deep time – what it can hide and what it reveals.