Faithful Reader Bud S writes:
"Is there some kind of figure regarding how much of the world there is to dig up and how much has been dug up? Are we just at the tip of the iceberg, like 10%? Are we at the 90 or 99th percentile? Is it even quantifiable?"
I can't imagine it's quantifiable, but I would say archaeologists have excavated only a tiny fraction of the earth's crust. Even if we were to have excavated all the places people don't live now (which we haven't by a long shot), untapped archaeological resources lie just beneath the concrete of many a modern city. Just because we built on the top of an old site doesn't mean all evidence of it has disappeared. Archaeology isn't stagnant, either—the ruins of what we built 50 years ago could qualify as an archaeological site.
So, let's rephrase what you're asking, and instead say, have we just about learned all we're going to learn about the past by digging, or is there gobs more to do? There is simply gobs and gobs more to do. That's why you might have noticed that what we understand about the past changes from day to day.
Great question, though. It might be possible to figure out "how much of x civilization has been excavated" (that is to say, somebody could figure it out, I'm not volunteering to do so). You would start by getting estimates of the area that people say x civilization has been mapped in and then plot the excavations. I think you'd be shocked at how little any civilization has been studied. Something for an eager GIS/Google Earth student with time on his/her hands (or a pending thesis) to do.
Ilulissat Iceberg, Greenland. Photo by kaet44
Comments
As far as I know, only 5% of city of Troy is excavated over nearly a hundred years of scientific work…
In Anatolia, only nearl 40-50 Neolithic settlements excavated. Only 340-350 Neolithic sites known up to now. I suggest that there has been at least 1500 sites in the Neolithic, maybe more…
Most of the world is still waiting to be discovered… And also there a lot which has been destructed by road constructuions, illicit digs etc…
Most sites in the American southwest remain unexcavated. For example, there are 3654 known sites in Chaco Culture National Historical Park but fewer than 50 have been excavated, fewer still with modern methods.
Federal, state, and educational databases listing sites are closed to the public–for very good reasons–but my website lists some sources that are open to the public.
In Iraq, there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands sites spanning 10,000 years or even much more in time, still virgin.
there are hundreds of enormous mounds could be seen laying on level planes stretches to the horizon.
Unfortunately, and with the lawlessness followed the infamous occupation of 2003 accompanied with severe poverty, some people and gangs used earth moving machines to excavate haphazardly to put their hands on whatever they find and smuggle it
abroad not even knowing what’s the value of their findings……very sad.