I guess the thing I find so fascinating about archaeology is, let's say mankind had not made such astounding, seemingly magical progress in the last few hundred years, it would still be fascinating to see how our ancestors lived 5k, 50k, 500k years ago.
But given that modern life is so radically different in so many ways compared to life a thousand and more years ago, it makes the study of ancient human life even more fascinating in that how we survived back then and how it led to us getting where we are today.
Things like the iPhone, steel, glass, rubber, food production/distribution, electricity, the ICE, pavement, they all blow my mind even though they are a bedrock part of everyday life.
Lol, this is probably why anybody likes archaeology, but just saying.