I'll agree that there may have been societies in the distant past that rivaled our own with regard to technology. Their technology may have been quite different, and some of it may have advanced further than any of ours.

Where I disagree is in the time table. When you examine the archeological studies with regard to the dating of ancient artifacts, buildings and sites, you will find lots of disagreement in the scientific community regarding the age. I am speaking, here, about non-carbon dated materials.

Why is this important? It's important because carbon dating is based on the C-14 in the materials that have been dated by other methods. Here are the two major problems with carbon dating:

1. Carbon dating needs an accurate past-date to use as a base to set the machines with. If there is x amount of C-14 at 4,500 years in the past, and there is y amount in the present, then we should be able to determine the age of anything by determining the amount of C-14 in it. The question is, was the object used to get the x amount of C-14, dated properly by OTHER METHODS so that we CAN use it to get accurate readings from further back?

2. Here is the BIG problem with carbon dating. We have to assume that geological and ecological systems prior to the 4,500 years (about as far back as we can go without the use of carbon dating), were the same with regard to amounts of C-14 throughout. If geological upheavals, along with climatic conditions, made amounts of C-14 to be very different at some time prior to 4,500 years ago, carbon dating can be way off in its findings.

We are finding more and more that the earth was never "quiet" for very long. There have been major upheavals in the past. There are anomalies in ages-old DNA that show that either life was extremely different in the past, or that the amounts of C-14 in materials back then was extremely different. We are seeing that we cannot depend on carbon dating for accurate time readings.