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

It began during the Renaissance (15th-16th centuries) with the rediscovery of ancient Latin and Greek texts. Renewed interest in ancient Roman and Greek culture revolutionized art and culture in Europe at that time. Antiquarians were people engaged in the study of ancient artifacts, and they were always around, but it wasn’t until the Enlightenment (17th -18th centuries) and the development of the scientific method that excavations of the major sites described in the texts started to interest people.
The development of modern universities that published their own research journals (18th century) was also an essential piece.

Archaeology as a science didn’t really emerge until the 18th century with Johann Wincklemann. He was the first to become an expert on ancient pottery and to start classifying it into different types. Archaeologists studying pottery (I wrote my master’s thesis on Hellenistic cooking pots) still rely on the foundation that his work created today.