Very little remains from the Neanderthals, who lived just a few tens of thousands of years ago. Even very recent, very advanced human civilizations, like those of pre-Columbian America, made most of their constructions from organic materials like wood, so that evidence is hard to come by after only a few hundred years.
What if a much more ancient civilization — pre-dating humans — achieved some level of technology?
Even crocodiles, who are related to the non-avian dinosaurs, recently have been shown to use tools. It doesn’t seem impossible that dinosaurs did as well.
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If some dinosaurs did indeed develop technology, which species would have been most likely to take that step? The smartest ones are usually thought to be the troodons, bird-like dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous period. They fit many of the requirements we usually look for in a technologically advanced species. Not only were they intelligent (based on the size of their brains), but they were very social. They had long arms with “hands” and “fingers,” which may have given them enough dexterity to handle tools and manipulate objects.
The troodons became extinct toward the end of the Cretaceous period about 65 million years ago, along with many other dinosaurs, when a large asteroid struck Earth.
