There are other explanations, ofc. Maybe there's a galactic moratorium on contacting new space faring civilisations.

If you're willing to discard the conclusion that we're an early civilisation, then it's reasonable to think that old civilisations have had plenty of time to decide whether or not to contact us.

There are quite a few different takeaways you could draw from that. My personal favourite is that they want to recreate the "early universe" experience for us because it's an important process for civilisations to go through.