Eli5 – Why are we finding entire homes and streets in archaeological digs? doesn’t anyone notice a street or building starting to get covered in dirt and dust? at some point someone must notice the old plato theatre is knee high into the earth?

Question

Eli5 – Why are we finding entire homes and streets in archaeological digs? doesn’t anyone notice a street or building starting to get covered in dirt and dust? at some point someone must notice the old plato theatre is knee high into the earth?

In: 2940

Answer 1

Whole structures do get abandoned sometimes.

Pompeii was famously buried in a single day from a volcanic eruption and perfectly preserved.

Settlements along the Nile were routinely abandoned when the river changed course.

Floods, wars, major earthquakes. The collapse of the government and associated trade. Mines ran empty. Wells ran dry. Sea route replaced the old overland route.

House burned down.

The planet is littered with settlements that didn’t work out for some reason or another. Sometimes people come back eventually and build over the top, sometimes they never return.

There’s also a significant survival bias for buried ruins – structures that didn’t get buried for some reason were eventually torn down or weathered away.