This mask is not one of the two, as it was discovered by a Palestinian farmer and without a controlled excavation all that context was lost (although they’ve done surveys of the discovery site and found evidence of similarly aged artifacts). It was dated with patina analysis, which is a bit controversial to say the least. Which is to say, the scientific consensus about its age is fragile.
the oldest continuously inhabited city is Jericho (Ariha in Arabic) and that's essentially where this mask was found (100KM to the south, anyway). Jericho has been inhabited since 9600 BC.
Just take a moment and contemplate that the best estimate we have has a range of 5,000 years.
It's carved stone. Must weigh a ton to carry on one's face.
It also could very well not have been a mask humans would have worn, but instead it could have been part of some other thing like a statue or maybe an effigy that was burned, i.e., the "mask" could have been added to a straw or wood statue/figure that was then burned; saving the "mask" for next season/time.
It could have also very well just have been a kind of thing you would use to deter intruders by having or placing it somewhere.
A mask presumes that a human would wear it or it emulates such a purpose. It does not even need to be that. Think of old porcelain dolls whose face was porcelain but the rest of the head was stuffed fabric. That would also explain the holes on its perimeter. That kind of thing is also still done in certain places during various pagan celebrations that have survive and are so old no one knows how old they are, probably handed down and evolved from even before the time of this "mask's" creation.
Ten thousand years isn’t very much in geological timescales, not enough to bury everything and crush it to dust so anything that gets left in a landfill (and not harvested in the future) has a chance of surviving. Anything made of noble metals like gold and platinum especially, so it’ll mostly be a question of how much is thrown away versus recycled.
Our modern middens will be full of artifacts.
But there are other things, including awesome-and-dangerous nuclear waste sites, with warning messages/symbols designed to last beyond the collapse of modern civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warnin...
