The older cities would be mined for the metals, and the remaining traces after enough weathering could easily be taken as ore deposits.
Yes, there should be hard evidence, and yes, there are many OOPArts out there, and yes, we do try very hard to fit them into our current world view, or they get filed and forgotten.
Keep in mind that I am speculating, not advocating the certainty of an antediluvian society, but merely allowing the possibility that one could have existed, as yet undiscovered and/or unrecognized.
A post collapse religious fervor could even have gone to great efforts to eliminate every trace of any previous technology or civilization, no library of Alexandria, no statue of Buddha is immune.
Antediluvian isn’t the precise word I want, but if you’ll allow the water in the Great Flood to be frozen, it can be hammered in to place, filed flush, and painted to match...
I'm skeptical that we could hide the evidence of our civilization from future archaeologists, even were we to devote an enormous effort in to doing so.
Yes, there should be hard evidence, and yes, there are many OOPArts out there, and yes, we do try very hard to fit them into our current world view, or they get filed and forgotten.
That's the first time I'd ever come across that term ("OOPArt").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact
Keep in mind that I am speculating, not advocating the certainty of an antediluvian society, but merely allowing the possibility that one could have existed, as yet undiscovered and/or unrecognized.
One can't prove a negative, of course, but it strikes me as extraordinarily unlikely. And, as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
A post collapse religious fervor could even have gone to great efforts to eliminate every trace of any previous technology or civilization, no library of Alexandria, no statue of Buddha is immune.
Shades of Asimov's "Nightfall"!
“The older cities would be mined for the metals, and the remaining traces after enough weathering could easily be taken as ore deposits.”
How exactly would we mistake man-made, refined metals and alloys for natural ores?