I see the earth as an old painting in this way: Sometimes a painting would be put to canvas, only to be whitewashed and another painting would be put on top of it.
I see the surface of the earth as a canvas upon which God created something. He then “whitewashed it” and put something new on it. And we have no idea how many iterations took place.
Our particular painting began with all the writings and artifacts we find on or near the surface. However, if we carefully peal away the top painting, we find one under it. And one under that one. And eventually we find a layer with things likd Dinosaurs, and we go deeper to find more.
And to be clear, if our modern planet was to be hit with a large enough cosmic event, though the planet may survive, all remnant of modern technology would be wiped out. Or virtually all remnant. This may explain some OOP artifacts.
So, though we know a lot, do we really have any clue how long ago there may have actually have been technological societies on this very planet? Our forefathers didn’t know North and south america existed, nor were they privy to the significantly advanced culture in North America. What do we not yet know about the distant history of our plenet and civilizations that preceded us.
The bible shares information back to Genesis 1:2, but we have no clue what happened in the time period of indeterminant length between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. We can only speculate, and let archeological discovery lead the way.
There are pretty compelling sets of evidence suggesting it's a 12,000 year cycle.
The last disaster was about 12,000 years ago...