ELi5 : Why does it seem a lot of archeology began so recently in the 20th and 19th centuries? Why weren’t we digging up stuff much earlier?

Question

It seems many of the most important archeological findings were in the 20th and 19th century. Why did humans wait so long to start digging stuff up?

In: 961

Answer 1

Just think about it from a practical stand point. No one up till the last 200 years had technology and a steady food supply. So who is going to go search for ancient remains when you need to search for food? People have the opportunity today to go on long expeditions and have Amazon.com drop off a box of food. I’m joking of course about Amazon. But food and supplies can be brought in instead of hunted and gathered on site. Yes people have explored before the last 200 years. But that was never in search of information. It was in search of some form of capital gain.