he obvious choice is that the forts have been vitrified by an attacking force. This leads us to the major problem confronting scientists and archaeologists however, as Clarke noted, "The temperatures required to vitrify the entire fort structure in-situ are equal to those found in an atomic bomb detonation." No known method for vitrification of such large scale objects has ever been discovered in pre-modern history. Archaeologists have tried to reproduce the process but without success, they have 'vitrified' small sections of forts but nothing on the scale of an entire fort and concede that it appears impossible. Could the forts have been attacked by technology 'not of this earth'? It really does seem like the only answer, but it almost goes without saying that no such record of an attack exists, and certainly no such record of technology which could produce these temperatures has been recorded. Or has it? It's a huge leap of the imagination but nuclear/atomic weapons have been described in historical writings - The Mahabbarat describes one of the Gods (who was responsible for a 'race' of people) as using what can only be interpreted as a laser to 'heat' ground based objects to super high temperatures and 'fusing' them as a sign of his displeasure...I stress this wasn't lightning which was well documented and understood - this was a 'light beam'. Curiously Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atomic bomb, chose to quote from these same Indian writings when discussing his first nuclear detonation. Even more remarkable was when he was asked if - the nuclear explosion he oversaw was the first? His reply was - "Yes, in modern times"

Originally posted by 11andrew34

Originally posted by GonzoSinister
Pow..... Smoking gun... they could not have done this in the dark!!! Genuis!!!

It doesn't look like there is enough ventilation to even use torches.

The only viable light source would be candles. Ideally, they would be used in lanterns.

So I'm looking at the wiki now and supposedly, candles only go back to 200BC in China and 400 AD in Europe. Apparently there isn't any evidence of candles going further back then that...but I wonder what you'd really expect to find from such a perishable item.

It would seem unlikely for hunter gatherers to come by enough bees wax or even cow fat. However as soon as you have people hunting with bluffs and corrals, they would have had the large supply of animals and enough people for the specialization to clean them all and get the fat and do something with it like make a bunch of tallow candles.

I wonder how old the oldest known lantern is? It seems like it would have been possible to make one by the bronze age at the latest. Even further back, it wouldn't have been impossible to make a few of them if only you had the right ideas.