Has there ever been a mammal of comparable size/number of bones to us that reached a world population of 7.5 billion?tbh it's possible that WE as 21st century humans won't end up in the fossil record
no idea. but as I said, fossilization takes very specific circumstances. Entire species of animals have existed and died out without any trace in the fossil record - we only have an inkling that they may have existed because of gaps in the fossil record that could potentially be filled.
I'm fascinated by loss of human knowledge over time -- one of the many reasons I enjoyed Anathem so much -- so I do wonder if there will ever come a time when later humans dig up our fossils and gradually piece together that we existed on every continent.
This fascinates me as well! I even see it in music all the time. Like, there are so many things that i dig up that I wind up finding out i'm "rediscovering" because bassists are bad record keepers.