The Dinosauroids is a fascinating concept being explored by artist Simon Roy (deviantART, Blogger, tumblr) based on the premise that the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub asteroid misses Earth:
However, the resulting world is not simply a long-lived cretaceous paradise – the Deccan Traps still flooded the sky with ash and changed the climate and atmosphere, killing off most, if not all, of the great dinosaurs. The survivors of such an event, however, are a handful of small therapods, mammals, birds, and even a few pterosaurs.
While our ancestors developed the hand-axe and honed their stone-throwing skills to scavenge kills, the saurian’s ancestors were developing more and more advanced pointy sticks.
Beginning with twig and leaf tools for grub-fishing, these developed into larger proto-spears, for stabbing into burrows and dens of small mammals and birds. These developed into hardier stabbing spears, which became the main tool of cooperative killing of small and medium-sized game. This was their technological plateau – because of their butcher claws, a band could quickly divide up and devour a smaller kill, but they were restricted to smaller prey because their claws weren’t effective on larger carcasses. These skills would serve them well as the Pliocene progressed, the slowly worsening climatic conditions prompting more social complexity and superior hunting techniques.
Complex communication – of abstract ideas, states of mind, etc, is one of the signifiers of advanced intelligences – and in the dinosauroids, or avisapiens, it is no different.
A slave taken by the hunters of the northern steppes. Most slaves have their enlarged second claw (the “butcher-claw”) removed, as to make them more dependent on their owners.
Their languages are as much visual as verbal, and though the verbal aspects change from region to region, the visual language of the body is nearly universal (within species, that is – A. saurotheos and A. borealis, respectively). Avisapiens visual communication is a development of the ancestral proto-dinosauroid’s visual displays – of dominance, submission, play, fear – that became, over millennia, the cues and modifiers in much more complex communication.
For example, in A. Borealis, the elongated throat feathers play an essential role in language. When flared during the speaking of a name, the throat feathers connote dominance of the name-bearer. When held during speech, it changes what is being spoken to the imperative tense. A vibrating tail held low shows nervousness and submission – coupled with a bowed head and feathers held flat, it is the deepest expression of shame and defeat. There are more subtle signifiers, as well – the nictitating membrane over the eye is used to show everything from surprise to arousal, depending on the context.
For more, see the galleries The Dinosauroids and The World They Live In. Roy has also collaborated with and recieved suggestions from other artists. I haven’t tracked down everything here, but I did spot this great suggestion from deviantART user Rodrigo-Vega who thought about how these creatures would use throwing weapons and also added some different decorative elements:
(via)
See also: Solarpunk
