ExtinctZoo - How Close Were Dinosaurs To A Stone Age?

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

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one, if not the most important period in human and hominin history, having been by far the longest lasting age for us modern humans and the homogeneous in general, as it started nearly 3.4 million years ago and lasted all the way to just 2000 BC when it finally came to a close after the advent of metalwork. And while the Stone Age may seem primitive to you or I, it ultimately played a massive role in our development and was a key step in us ending up where we are now. In other words, no Stone Age, no iPad. So, maybe that would have been a good thing. And while it's not a rule, many scientists believe that for any animal, the Stone Age of sorts is almost an unavoidable step to achieve greater technology,

which is why so many people are interested in animals that have shown signs of entering their very own, stone ages. And over the years, various researchers have reported that a few living animals have actually done this, such as chimpanzees, permissible long-tail macaques, and capuchin monkeys, with them all showing signs of using stone tools, most of the time to crack open to stubborn food. But in the case of the Capuchans, there is even evidence that this Stone Age behavior dates back, all the way to 3,000 years ago, as stones bearing signs of repeated use have been found in the Sahadu Savannah, which date back to that time, and show that even thousands of years ago, these primates were using varying stone sizes and shapes to hammer and dig into their environment,

leading some to wonder just how this will develop in the future. However, while it can seem like all these animals are just entering the Stone Age right now, you have to remember that life has been around for a hot minute, which has made me wonder, at least, just how many different animals in the past reached the Stone Age before extinction got them. And of course, being the paleo nerd that I am, this also meant I was really wondering if the dinosaurs in particular have been in their very own Stone Age too. After all, this group did rule the Earth for over 160 million years, basically uninterrupted, and suffered relatively minor extinction events during the majority of their reign, and also evolved into a mind-boggling different amount of species and families,

which, to me at least seem to give them a pretty good shot at creating at least one genius over all these years. So again, this all begs the question, were dinosaurs ever in a stone age? And the answer is, Drumroll, please. F, no. But that's a no with an asterix. You see, throughout the history of paleontology, we have yet to stumble upon any strong evidence of tool usage amongst dinosaurs, no matter the group, place, or age.

And as extension, no stone tools attributed to them have been found either. And thus going off of the fossil record, we can say that they never reached the stone age. Yet, the big caveat here is that this is the fossil record, and the fossil record is not exactly perfect at preservation. In fact, when it comes to animal bones, it's believed that less than one in a million are actually fossilized, and that's just bones, meaning there is a ton of stuff that existed that simply will never be found because of time. And therefore, no evidence of dinosaur tool use doesn't really mean 100% that they didn't. And over the years, certain paleontologists have made arguments, which would seem to suggest that dinosaurs were further along the technological tree than one might think.

Now, granted these arguments have tended to err on the side of controversial, but they still do make some pretty interesting points. You see, not all dinosaurs were made the same, and when it came to intelligence, the differences here were about as extreme as their diversity. When it comes to brain to body size ratio, most dinosaurs actually appear to be quite the smooth brains. No offense to them. For example, the five-toned stegosaurus only had a brain the size of a walnut, or maybe a bent hot dog. While the largest dinosaurs, the saropods, had brains comparable to tennis balls, despite in some cases being 100 tons in weight. Whereas in comparison, our brains are already larger than that, despite being obviously less than one ton, besides your mom. And when I say our brains are bigger, I don't mean relatively either.

Our noggins are literally about 8 to 10 times bigger than a tennis ball. So a saropod, probably not the brightest. And so overall, it's generally not thought that these kind of dinosaurs, i.e. or not fishians or saropods, were as smart as mammals, being generally more comparable to modern reptiles. And in a way this makes sense, as brains require a lot of energy to create and maintain. So in a world where giant killers are after you all the time, and you have to put a bunch of points into size and defenses, suddenly having extreme intelligence doesn't seem to be so important. Plus, when you're something like ancalisaurus, i.e. a tank with a club that would give a wrecking ball some insecurities, you really don't need that much thinking power. You see something, you swing. That's it.

But even then, these groups weren't really all that dumb. And some of them like saropods or hadrosaurs did actually utilize stones to a degree, as fossils have been found with something called gastroliths inside their stomach region, meaning they basically gobbled up rocks in order to aid in digestion. But this is more likely an instinctual thing than any sort of intellectual decision. Now, beyond these two, you then also had, of course, the theropods, the third group of dinosaurs who largely consisted of the carnivorous dinosaurs, and in some cases seem to have gotten far more intelligent than their counterparts, on average, possessing larger brains to body size and having more neurons, which is obviously very important. Yet, with that said, just like sauropods and ornithicians,

not all theropods are built equal, as within this group, you also had two more subgroups, the solarosaurs and carnosaurs, with the former containing all theropods more closely related to birds than the carnosaurs. And it was these guys, in particular, who were considered to have been the Einstein's dinosaurs, possessing the highest amount of neurons. And their level of these cells have become large part of the dinosaur tool used debate. It's not so long ago a study in one of the best known dinosaurs, of course the king, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, showed that based off of an endicast, the king was really packing in neurons, with it being estimated to have had 3,289 of them. And that's in the millions, by the way, giving it not only 10 times the neural power of that of a

sarapod like barqueasaurus, but also more than that of a baboon, who themselves have been observed using stone tools, such as throwing rocks, or using them to crack open hard-shelled fruits, which in turn has led researchers to claim the T-Rex, how do what it takes to, at least mentally speaking, to create its own tools to solve complex problems, and then get this, build various cultures, especially given that their longevity would have allowed them to live long enough

to pass down information from generation to generation. So, a, T-Rex secret society, question mark? Now, of course, this study makes some pretty substantial claims, and most other paleontologists had some criticism for it, as possessing a bunch of neurons is, surprise, surprise, not to actually guarantee that you're Isaac News. As the location of their neurons, their connections, and more, all play a role into how this translates into actual intelligence. And in the case of the T-Rex, many think that the high amount of neurons were actually there to supercharge its immensely powerful senses, such as extraordinary smelling, instead of being there for the benefit of creating tools.

And really, the T-Rex, or any T-Renosaur, for that matter, weren't exactly. Visit BetMDMDM-G-M-Casino and check out the newest exclusive, the Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor.

Free of charge. BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Exactly the best built to wieldstone tools in the first place. Seeing that their short arms or the regressed digits would have made it quite hard to grasp or manipulate objects. While then their large teeth and giant jaws would also make it hard to pick up and use any type of tool, let alone make them.

And because of this, I do think it's quite a stretch to say that any of the Tyrannosaurs were in a stone age. Now though, with that said, the Tyrannosaurs were by no means of the only therapods out there. And like I said, they are frankly not the best candidate for tool use anyways,

as other families had not only better physical traits for potential tool wielding, but also more impressive brains, at least in the sense that they had higher brain-to-body ratio. And this generally extended to the smaller feathered theropods, such as the Dromasaurus, who could have encephalization quotients as high as 5.8, which puts them apart predatory mammals, such as dogs or house cats, who obviously can also be quite clever when they choose to be.

But unlike what you see with the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, this group was likely not door-opening smart, nor are Dormosaurs considered to be the smartest dinosaurs? Is that how to belongs to other, usually smaller theropods, who'd even larger brain-eat-kews? such as the Trudontids, Wernithymidae, and the Archaeotaradergadee, with one noticeable trend being the more close to a bird the dinosaur gets, the smarter they seem to be. Across the board, these generally little theropods of some impressively larger brain cavities and EQs compared to their fellow theropods, suggesting they were gifted, you could say, at least within the dino realm.

And Trudontids in particular, a group that only showed up in late Jurassic, have garnered a lot of attention from researchers, as search in genera have shown promising signs of being quite the smarty pants. And there is some real evidence that reflects this and the notion that they were brighter than the rest. As in the North American latent ventatrix, for example, their nests tended to show higher complexities than what other dinosaurs created, with manual manipulation having been observed. Well, then they also used the Earth itself to create their intended designs. Meanwhile, reproductive traces showed a metabolic output extremely similar to that in modern birds,

assigned to some at least that they were quite similar in certain ways, thus potentially having a similar level of intelligence. And so these facts, coupled with their more dexterous hands, which included relatively long arms and three well-developed digits, has led some to ponder if these guys used rudimentary tools, perhaps even stone tools. In one case, the paleontologist Dale Russell even speculated that if a dinosaur, such as the true daunted, stenonikasaurus, had not died out in the late Cretaceous extinction, then its descendants might have evolved to be the human equivalent of dinosaurs,

leading to the hypothetical species known as the dinosauroid. Now, obviously, this was met with a lot of scrutiny, but it was an interesting thought experiment that shows just how much smarter paleontologists think true Dondids were compared to other theropods. Sadly though, no matter how much more we learn about the actual brain design of dinosaurs, it will always be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say if any Mesozoic creature had actually been using stone tools. Because as mentioned, if you thought preserving one bone is hard, try preserving good evidence of stone use for many millions of years. However, with all of this said, we can still kind of say that dinosaurs

did and do conclusively use stone tools, as one can obviously not forget about the living dinosaurs all around us, birds, who in some ways seem to be the most intelligent of them all. In fact, some birds, such as corvids and parrots, show cognitive properties equal to that of great apes, such as chimpanzees, with one study from Boston University, even finding that at least one gray parrot seemed to be as smart as a six-year-old in at least certain areas. Now, obviously, just like dinosaurs, not every bird is Jimmy Neutron, and it does seem that the crows, parrots, and partially vultures are the shining stars, so to speak, of this group. higher density of neurons and their palliums compared to others. In addition, birds with longer

developmental periods and more complex niches have also been shown to have increased intelligence. And across the board, the avian dinosaurs have accomplished some pretty remarkable things, including utilizing various hard surfaces to drop prey onto in order to crack their shells. And what's cool about this is that they're even able to figure out what kind of surface they need depending on the shell they must break. Furthermore, birds have also been recorded using thorns to impale prey, pieces of wood as probes, and the list goes on, with studies on tool usage in birds actually being quite intensive and expansive. And essentially the agreement is that they're pretty smart fellas.

But that said, it does beg the question of how do they fare when it comes to stone tools specifically? And the answer to that is, well, remarkably good, as multiple genera have been documented using stones to their advantage. For instance, Trinidadian mottmots use stones along forest floors as animals to crack the shells and exoskeletons of arthropods and snails. And then perhaps more impressively, Egyptian vultures are considered stone tool users as well. seeing that they've learned to equip rocks their beaks, and then use them to hammer open ostrich eggs. And then get this.

In crows, we've even observed that they have learned to place stones in various water vessels in order to displace the water and raise the surface level, in order to make it more accessible to them to drink. And the crow family have actually gotten a bit crazy with this, too. And a certain species, like many of the ravens, have been noted to use rocks as weapons, dropping them on dogs to make a statement, while also having a clear conceptualization on the purpose of man-made tools after they were used. And this actually plays into a bigger picture, which is that not just Ravens, but multiple

Corvids in general have learned to build tools based off of viewing our own tools, and have then also taught others of their kind on how to do it as well, passing this information on not only to others in the immediate sense, but also to the next generation. And it's this transferring of information that scientists' views having been an integral aspect of our very own Stone Age. And then, while not necessarily made out of rock, another big deal with the Corvids has been their construction of hooks, through twigs. that can be used to catch grub. And the reason why this is important

is that the invention of hooks is sometimes seen as going hand in hand with our own Stone Age journey once again. And what's crazy is, this milestone didn't even actually happen that long ago for us, with barbedged tools only showing up about 90,000 years ago.

In other words, the latter part of modern humans' existence. So, who knows? Maybe dinosaurs are catching up. And something else you could argue was even more crazy about birds, is that the exceptionally smart ones are in some cases

capable of making tools out of multiple parts. which is a huge step from just fashioning a tool out of one thing, like a singular twig or a singular stone. And so, when you combine all this together, you do find people touting that birds, in their own way, have entered a stone age of sorts, or at least a new, complex technological era. Some have even hypothesized that if great apes were to go extinct,

humans included, and birds survived, then maybe it would be their time to create the next civilization, as they also have other factors which are kind of good for this stuff too, like longer lifespans, strong social bonds, behavioral flexibility, complex communication, the ability to problem solve, etc., etc. Of course, though, this is all just experimental thinking, but it would be fun to imagine a world where birds have become the smartest group. But I guess if that were to happen, though, we would never see that day.

Thanks for watching, and until next time, on Extinctu.