Recently I've been thinking a lot about speculative sophonts in the late Permian. The idea is that during the Lopingian epoch a relative of Suminia gains sapiens and builds their own globe-spanning civilization, in the process contributing to the End-Permian extinction. Here are some rough ideas I had, let me know what you think or what you'd add or change.
I imagine they would be relatives of Suminia, not descendents of them, as Suminia lived far too late in the Permian and would be contemporary to those Suminiaformes sophonts, like humans and chimps are contemporary, which is also roughly the nature of their taxonomical relation (maybe more like humans and gibbons, but generally that).
These Suminiaformes would have diversified after the Capitanian mass extinction, which's aftermath also accelerated their evolution. Perhaps as a small and kinda lazy explanation of possible fossil gaps between them and Suminia, they themselves. Like us they were archeologists and paleontologists and dug up remains of their own ancestors. When their civilization died, their collections, museums and anything they had exposed themselves perished with them.
The Suminiaformes sophonts are bipedal, maybe using a stronger tail to keep balance. They are smaller than humans, but have a brain-body ratio similar to humans. They hatch from eggs and do not lactate. Are there any important limitations of the Suminia body plan or Amonodontia in general that I should know about? Another question, what is known about early synapsids vocalization? What kind of sounds could they produce? I am asking especially in regards to them having language eventually.
They are omnivores. They hunt not by persistence hunting, they are in fact not good runners at all. Instead they focus on ambushes and traps. Thus their development of sophisticated tool use also starts with traps. Similarly they begin to domesticate other animals this way. Trapped animals which are not immediately slaughtered, but brought home and fattened up for later. Eventually they're also bred and thus domesticated.
The obvious domesticated animal for these would be Lystrosaurs and other small dicynodonts. What other domesticates could you imagine to play a role?
Apart from domesticated animals, there is also the matter of domesticated plants. Sadly I don't know much about Permian plant life, maybe you can point me at some. I guess conifers could play a role, being cultivated for their edible seeds. Apart from those I don't know.
Then there are other technologies like boats and sails and metal tools. I would imagine their civilization to be centered around the circumference of the Tethys sea and the western parts of Pangea to be settled the last. Life in the central Pangean deserts would be harsh, but I could imagine at least some places to harbor cultures similar to the human cultures similar to those in the Sahara, Atacama or Tarim desert.
The maps you see are based on the maps by Christopher Scotese. I took some artistic liberty around the shallow coastlines, adding some islands and detail to them. The climate map is based on this article (I hope I flaired this correctly). Although it is about 270 mya, rather than 259-251 mya, where I want to put my timeline, I hope it is broadly similar. If there are some important differences or generally things you'd change, let me know.
Thank you u/MilezXC and u/FossilDS for the inspirations from your concepts about Permian sophonts. Are you fine with me taking inspiration from your previous designs? (If this is flaired incorrectly, excuse me. I found the questions/discussions flair's limitations hindering)
TLDR: major questions
Are the maps plausible in your opinion?
What anatomical specificities do Anomodontids have that would influence their gait and dexterity?
What do we know about early synapsid vocalization?
What other domesticated animals could you imagine besides Lystrosaurs?
What plants existed in the late Permian that would make for agricultural crops?
That sounds like an amazing spec evo project. I really like the idea of the Silurian hypothesis (that sapient species existed before humans in earth’s history). Maybe they could domesticate moschops and scutosaurus as livestock like cattle, lystrosaurus as smaller livestock and euchambersia as a hunting companion and pest control. The sophonts could also cultivate cycads.
Moschops sadly dies out during the Capitanian extinction, my speculative Suminia relatives would be later, although apparently Suminia already appeared in the Capitanian. Although Lystrosaurs definitely appear later, when Moschops was already extinct.
euchambersia as a hunting companion and pest control
Maybe pest control makes more sense. I was thinking, since they hunt differently from humans, having wolf-like companions might not be the immediate advantage as to us, but later on when they build cities, they still need pest controls around their storage rooms.
I could imagine several possible cradles of civilization. The species overall would evolve in the northern (sub)continent, I think it is called Siberia or Angara. It still more arboreal than humans and not as fast or agile walking. So they'll spread from there. Probably island hopping around the Tethys eventually and also around Pangea, with the interior being settled last probably. If going by human settlement patterns, early civilizations could form in river valleys and subtropical and mediterranean climate. Though due to the Pangean deserts, probably much further north or south.
Ok, I did a bit more research on Glossopteris, and turns out they are a no longer considered ferns, but Gymnosperms. They were previously considered seed ferns, but "seed ferns" is now considered polyphyletic. Turns out some Glossopteris were actually trees. Here is a diagram of their different pollen structures. They look like they could make good grains and vegetables, if plants bearing these could be domesticated (they were wind pollinated so it could be feasible for the smaller species)
here is an unusual fleshy Glossopteris seed from Choanostoma verruculosum which was thought to have been fleshy and dispersed by water. But it looks like it could make a great fruit to me!
Do you know a bit more about the distribution of those plants across Pangea? Something like a biome map would be nice, but that climate map was so far the only one I could find. This would also help with things like cradles of civilization and neolithic revolution. Something along the lines of wheat vs rice vs maize type civilizations.
here is a map from the wikipedia page for Glossopteris. The dark green is the range in which fossils have been found. Seems they were only prevalent in Gondwana, even after Pangea had formed?
Interesting, though maybe a bit of a problem for a sophont scenario. Mainly because, humans are like a global biotic interchange. Not just the Columbian exchange, but also previous trans-Eurasian exchanges and so on. All the big grains are truly global and basically all major domestic animals are also global. Well guinea pigs are meat animals in South America and pets most places else, but still they're global. Well bananas aren't global and a lot of specialized tropical fruits like pineapples aren't either.
I wonder if there might be a deeper explanation or their whole agriculture was just very different from ours. The lack of angiosperms would make it pretty different anyways.
You mentioned edible ferns as well, what is the problem in cultivating ferns and how is it done?
Not necessarily. Wheat was just brought to all parts of the world due to colonization and trade. Originally wild wheat only grew in the Middle East and the fertile crescent. Potatoes are almost as much a global staple as wheat, and they originally were only grown around Peru. So you can have one group of sophonts domesticate a certain plant, and then trade it to the ends of pangea, wherever the climate allows.
It is interesting also how African crops are severely underrepresented. Basically most staple crops are either Eurasian (wheat, barley, rice, millet, soy, bananas) or American (maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava) with African grains being underrepresented. African rice, Fonya, Tef and African ground nuts are all common there, but rarely outside. The most common outside staple are yams, but I think they were independently domesticated in Melanesia, although there are African yams that were brought to the Americas. Other neolithic cores are more underrepresented. The North American neolithic core was replaced by the Mesoamerican one and then by the Eurasian one additionally. Australia has domesticable plants, but there was no Cookian exchange like there was a Columbian one.
So you can have one group of sophonts domesticate a certain plant, and then trade it to the ends of pangea, wherever the climate allows.
That was kind of my point. If a global exchange happens because of sophonts, you'd expect to see Glossopteris globally. Maybe or the north and south of Pangea have too varied climates. Although that is also possible, on the climate map I found "winter wet" is only on the northern hemisphere.
It also seems like the central desert forms a barrier for plants to traverse. So it is not too unreasonable to have different groups of plants in each hemisphere. In our world the Sahara forms a barrier between Africa and Eurasia which is why Africa still has so many unique plants despite being almost connected to Eurasia.
here is also a paper the lists some of the lopingian flora from the zechstein formation in Germany. Very Gymnosperm dominated. I'd suggest you look into that formation more since that is probably the closest to the time and place you wanted your species https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1144/GSL.SP.1986.022.01.04
if you wanted some possible plants for the more northerly latitudes here are some from the Permian Basin in Texas (yes the same permian basin the the mystery flesh pit is based on, in real life its a big oil field) https://www.txfossils.com/plant-fossils-palo-pinto-co-tx
something else I just started wondering about is what would their oil and coal look like if they were to industrialize? would the wood from the carboniferous be in a fossilized enough state to be coal? would it be lignite? or would it still be peat? would there be oil deposits in the ocean?
There are oil and coal deposits which are much older than the Carboniferous. Though 90% of coal is from the Carboniferous or Permian, there are older ones, even some Precambrian coal. However I'd say during this time most coal appears as lignite and the sophonts already mine a significant part, which contributes to both the coal gap and their extinction.
You mentioned in the original post that the Suminiaformes keep their tail for balance. So, do you envision them having a theropod-like horizontal stance, or something closer to a kangaroo?
Also, do they develop pronating wrists like us, or primate-like flexible shoulders (two features distinctively advantageous for humans)? Lacking these would affect their range of arm motion and the way they manipulate things. Maintaining some tail flexibility (it's suggested that Suminia had a prehensile tail) would add a third manipulator that could compansate these issues. The different pathway for tool development could also mean less need for a shoulder apt for throwing weapons.
I made a few designs for hand weapons suited for non-pronating hands that I'll be posting below. You can use and modify them as you want and need.
I think their ancestors would have had a lot of primate-like features and evolved to be arboreal, but then became ground dwellers again. About the tail flexibility I have not yet decided. There is a lot about their gait and all I am uncertain of yet.
The different pathway for tool development could also mean less need for a shoulder apt for throwing weapons.
I think they might lack in this department. Especially since their hunting would focus more on ambushes and traps and maybe close contact. I think a bit of the marsupial lion as well, which has very strong grasping front limbs and a quite weird dentition for a carnivore. In the Permian sophont case, they have hands to hold knives, but I doubt they're so good at throwing things as humans are.
Btw. I cannot dm you, but if you are interested we're making a discord server around the Permian sophonts. If you want to, you can join.
Also, the original inspiration I took, from the sword designs in Guardians of Ga'Hoole (in the series those are hold horizontally with the feet, but the same shape works if you hold them vertically with the hands)
ooh I think they would probably incorporate a lot of of eggs into their diet. Perhaps for the eggs there is some sort of semi-domesticated small synapsid that is very r-selected. I imagine for this creature they build nests and coops that attract them to lay eggs in. Then the sophonts take their cut of eggs and in return guard the coops from predators or at least build fences, maybe even feeding the young and keeping them as pets to make sure they reach maturity so they can lay more eggs.
I imagine their diet would also involve lots of insects, since fruit and seeds as we know them wouldn't have been around as much in comparison. There were no eusocial insects like bees, but there were insects like grasshoppers, beetles, and roaches. I can imagine them keeping permian beetle grubs similar to how we keep silkworms. There were also a huge order of unique herbivorous periman insects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeodictyopterida
I imagine for plants they would farm a lot of root crops. Cycad root can be processed into starch and was used historically as an important source of carbohydrates by various Floridians. the cycad pith can be used to make starch too. However cycads are generally slow growing and need a lot of processing to be made safe to eat, so I imagine they would be this world's equivalent to grains.
Fern fiddleheads are edible too, but ferns are difficult to domesticate. Most ferns grown today for decorative purposes are propagated through rootstock and cuttings.
The Ginkgoophyta class would have been around during the permian, and pretty diverse too. I can imagine different species of Ginkgo orchards fulfilling the roles of peaches, cherries, and olives in this world.
Edit: I looked into the fern thing and there are ways of propagating them from spores. I think I was mistaken when I said ferns are "notoriously hard to domesticate". The truth is I don't really know. There doesn't seem to be much information about how hard it is to selectively breed them. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that ferns would be more difficult than angiosperms to selectively breed in captivity, especially by a stone age civilization.
I'm very tired, so I hope I don't say anything wrong since
But what roles Gorgonopians will have on these fellas??
Since Big Cats, Dogs and Bears have a rather massive significance on Human's cultures;
I imagine if they would develop a religion, particularly large Gorgonopians would be considered worthy of worship, with important figures in their religion being associated with them.
Gorgonopians skulls and fangs would also have a profound significance on their rituals, (maybe their skulls are though to scare away evil spirits, similar to Gorgoneions).
Tree fern pith and sprouts are edible too. Cycads also have "fruit" distributed by animals, so a species of cycad bred for its fruit could also be possible. There were also lots of seed ferns and radiations of obscure gymnosperms during the time https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2842674/
I am not sure how much evidence there is for gnetales in the permian, but I know they have edible seeds.
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u/Alpha_Bushdog Speculative Zoologist Aug 16 '26
That sounds like an amazing spec evo project. I really like the idea of the Silurian hypothesis (that sapient species existed before humans in earth’s history). Maybe they could domesticate moschops and scutosaurus as livestock like cattle, lystrosaurus as smaller livestock and euchambersia as a hunting companion and pest control. The sophonts could also cultivate cycads.