Zoology revision prompt! This is an excerpt about what you can tell from just a skull.
“A defining trait of mammals is specialised teeth. Mammals are the only class on Earth to evolve specialised teeth, with specific shapes for vegetation, meat, insects and combination diets. Reptile teeth are all very similar, single-point and peglike, often not as firmly rooted. They vary in size, for instance snake fangs, but in general are all very similar.”
There were skeletons all over this layer. Not down the ritual pits, but scattered about following some global disaster.
But this one…
This was an intact specimen.
The bones were, as always, bright red. Indicating that significant heat had been part of the disaster. These odd creatures were roasted alive.
Tarta carefully removed the skull from its matrix of ash and earth. brushing it clean enough to determine the details. The brain case indicated intelligent life. Large eye sockets. And a significant hole for the optic nerve. “These beings specialised in visual acuity. Judging by the muscle attachments, they had mobile eyes…”
Tarta scoped the nasal passages. “Smell was evidently a secondary sense. There’s no large structures for auditory input…” A race of deaf cogniscents? It was a theory. Alas, they had no live specimen to test.
But the teeth… the teeth said much.
“This is an omnivorous mammal. Look at these specialised teeth… Chopping teeth in the front and grinding teeth at the back. Ah!” Tarta gathered her students around to show them. “Look. Evidence of dentistry. This specimen had cavities, but they were drilled and filled with a ceramic accretion. These were intelligent creatures.”
“Then why did they blow themselves up?” Jori still felt compelled to raise her hand. “If they were intelligent, why did they bother with war?”
“You’ve seen the other creatures,” said Tarta. “The mammalian predators and the venomous reptiles. You’ve seen the creatures that survived the planetary apocalypse.”
Jori shuddered at the thought of the things outside their dig fortifications. “Yes. They’re all lethal.”
“And that’s the reason why. These beings originally came from a death world. War was how they lived. War was how they ended.”
As far as first impressions are concerned, humans could have done infinitely better than the remains of the colony world Numurica.
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