Imagine you're a bronze-age hunter. You've tracked a huge buck up past the treeline, it's getting cold, your family is hungry. As he pauses to nibble some lichen, you draw your bow. Sighted down that shaft is survival, at least for a while. Suddenly, the buck tenses and you jerk the release. Your arrow goes wide, off into the snow, lost forever along with dinner.
Three thousand years later, somebody finds it.
I love archaeology.