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

Adrienne Mayor argues in “The First Fossil Hunters” that ancient peoples found fossils and interpreted them to be mythological creatures. A wooly mammoth skull has a big hole in the middle that suggests the origin of the cyclops myth.