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by Arech 1727 days ago
Moreover to that - as far as I understand the Tall el-Hammam's paper, the only reason why they ruled out nuclear explosion is "because of the age of the site". Other than that (as I understand), it's indistinguishable.

Even though an atomic bomb blast is not applicable because of the historic absence of atomic explosions in the area, an atomic blast produces a wide range of melt products that are morphologically indistinguishable from the melted material found at TeH (Fig. 51). These include shocked quartz64; melted and decorated zircon grains (Fig. 51a, b); globules of melted material (Fig. 51c, d); meltglass containing large vesicles lined with Fe-rich crystals likely deposited by vapor deposition (Fig. 51e, f); spherules embedded in a meltglass matrix (Fig. 51g, h). Also, atomic detonations can replicate the physical destruction of buildings, the human lethality, and the incineration of a city, as occurred in World War II.

added: though, I forget to mention, that they also found many chemical elements and compositions that are hard to find under normal conditions (atomic bomb tests included as I understood), but abundant in meteorites.