I’ve been traveling around the UK, visiting lots of ancient sites, and I don’t understand how these places end up buried under so much dirt. I know that sometimes thousands of years pass between when something is abandoned and when it’s rediscovered, but how does that much dirt and debris cover things up over time? Can someone explain how this happens?
In: Planetary Science
There’s several factors at play here
The first is survivor bias – most ancient structures didn’t get buried, and over the centuries they were scavenged for building materials and eroded away to nothing. Only the sites that were abandoned and buried have survived this long to be excavated.
Now as for *how* they get buried, there’s a few mechanisms.
Sometimes it’s a sudden catastrophe, floods or mudslides or the infamous instantaneous destruction of Pompeii by a nearby volcano. These sites are well preserved because they were buried rapidly while still in use.
Sometimes it’s on purpose, with the structure being used as a grave site or garbage dump or filled in to function as a foundation for later construction.
And sometimes it’s just the passage of time in an area with shifting dunes and river paths and plant growth that slowly fills in a low-lying area with mud or sand or dirt.
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