Jim, //Because anyone who wants "answers" is unlikely to get them.//
Why? Because most (and note I say most) of science dismisses it without serious consideration, or because archaeologists cling doggedly to their convenient little slots, or because theologians have their heads so filled with religion that they can’t see the wood for the trees?
//An essential truth?//
Why is it? I don’t know, and neither do you – and you really don’t. And you’re mistaken. Unlike you I don’t base my assessments upon how likely I am to be right or wrong – if I don’t know, I say I don’t know – and if I’m wrong I say I’m wrong. However, the judgements I do make are based upon critical examination of the available potential evidence - something which your limited research may have missed.
The first thing I do when someone presents me with a theory that I can see no immediate rationality in is to ask them why they think as they do, so it seems curious to me that people who instantly dismiss this theory rarely ask me why I consider it to be a feasible possibility. Without having put much effort in at all, they just decide it can’t possibly be true. I suppose that’s a result of human beings limiting their vision only to that with which they are familiar – unless it involves God and the supernatural of course. Then see imaginations run riot! Wonky thinking to say the least.
Chris, obviously, over thousands of years most metal would have disintegrated. However, there are a few strange things around that indicate that a technology we assume didn’t exist in the past, actually did.