Welcome! :)
My question would be...Were they on earth before the Creation of Man? and what purpose did they serve?
I can’t ever imagine modern man living with Dinosaurs...
I was thinking (maybe out of the park,) is because of their large sizes they might of been able to firment the ground by walking on the earth?
Most of California, for example, was being fomed tectonically...under water, though is pretty fertile today, but for politics.
Religiously? Same essential argument but for God.
Susan M. Gaines, et al, Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal About Earth History. Pretty good book detailing, among other things, how molecules in crude oil have been traced back to the organisms that preceeded their incorporation into sediments.
The 'modern' men that lived with them didn't particularly like the idea either.
Alexander wrote of encountering huge reptiles that lived in caves in India, American indian cave drawings and paintings illustrate known dinosaurs, and men in combat with them, in England there is the story of St. George's victorious battle with one, and Historia Animalium, written in Europe in the 1500s listed as living species many of the known dino species, and there are many more written accounts of battles with reptiles matching known dinos all over the world.
All of these were before modern excavating equipment verified the existance of the animals they described.