I have a different idea. There are numerous historical accounts of basic resources available directly on the surface. These were cleaned up in preindustrial times when we had to start to dig for them. We have already removed almost everything that was in easy reach and now the resources we are digging up are either difficult to reach or require a lot of technology to concentrate and clean up. I am convinced there were no previous industrial civilizations because we would not see so many resources available in so clean form and so close to surface.