>>41451528 (OP)
Maybe not necessarily crashes, perhaps those are a semi-modern, relatively recent thing, due to our technology since the early 20th century; but possibly as gifts given, or perhaps crafts parked and long forgotten (either due to pilot misadventure or abandonment for whatever reason), and possibly some of those were discovered and then left in some burial vault for some king or other, or possibly long ago given as favours or as a bargain in some arrangement.
They may have been at least a couple rare instances of crashes in ancient / pre-history due to pilot error, but I think the phenomenon of human-initiated shoot-downs is recent.
The vast majority of anomalous craft found in archaeological digs are likely to NOT be shoot-downs.
For convenience's sake let's say anything prior to 1900 was not shot down, or crashed.
Somewhere out there, way out in the middle of nowhere where no man has trod for millennia, in some forgotten ravine, or canyon, or cave, or deep dark jungle canopy geographic recession is some craft still sitting left there as it was 10,000 years prior, still waiting to be re-found.
What happened to the pilots in such instances?
Revered as Gods by the locals, or killed in fear?
Will we ever know at all.
