VGFacts

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, by ignoring the first dragon encounter after you leave Helgen it is actually possible to play through a vast portion of the game without bringing the dragons back to life. This can be particularly useful, as random dragon encounters can kill quest-giving NPCs and otherwise disrupt missions the player might be undertaking. The player can still learn Words of Power from Word Walls, but they cannot be unlocked as you never gather dragon souls. However, dragon peaks across Skyrim still have enemies on them; these are the same enemies that the player would find dead, usually as burnt corpses, when arriving to the peak after the dragons had been resurrected.

Sources: I'm doing a playthrough without dragons right now! (I know this doesn't count)
Here are some real ones:

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/52479/t1...y-dragons/
http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/...ragonborn/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/r...-adventure
http://skyrimforums.org/sf/threads/a-wor...ons.16828/

All forum postings, I know, but this at the least confirms people have been playing this way and it's not a singular bug or something.