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

Archeology has always existed to some extent, preservation is better now because technology is better now.

It’s also a matter of individual values and perspectives, you have this clash even today with modern stuff. One person will say, ‘this has great historical and cultural value and must be protected, even at great financial cost’, while another will say ‘I can use this material to build houses’, and yet another will say, ‘there’s resources we can use to power industry under that junk and it’s getting in my way’.