A question occurred to me last night. Perhaps the two best known fictional archaeologists (taking the term somewhat loosely), across fiction in all media, are Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Both of them have in common that they investigate things about which there were rumours of ancient magical powers, or gods, or other such supernatural and
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Since my (not really well articulated) initial point was to try to avoid the trope that the only way archaeology can possibly be interesting in fiction is to have it conclude 'OMG all our ancient cultures' myths and religions were true after all!' (not to mention the bits about having to shoot lots of people and dodge rolling boulders), I think archaeology on alien planets is perhaps not disqualified for this exercise but probably ought to fall into a separate category.
('But wait,' you object, 'your own example of Nightfall is set on an alien planet!' Well, yes, but it's not alien to the characters - they're doing archaeology on their own home planet and investigating their own civilisational history, regardless of whether that planet and civilisation is also that of the readers ( ... )
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And sometimes the historical mystery is relevant and sometimes its fabircated, but it's always "knowing about what happened" rather than "following ancient secret instructions..." :)
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Frankly, most of those are utterly obscure to me. But for your stipulation that their archaeology has to be part of the plot, Jean-Luc Picard stands out!
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ETA: And I guess there's the reverse, like Da Vinci Code, where what's uncovered may or may not be magic, but is a matter of "ancient secrets which we need to re-learn"...
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