Archaeology from Space

by Sarah Parcak

  But if you have all the data Robbie’s bots collected, representing hundreds of years of standard archaeological work, with the equivalent scientific lab work, then I do not see why it would be impossible to synthesize immediate results, too. We already input data into computers for statistical purposes, to show us how, for example, certain objects became popular and then fell out of use. With large data sets from a single site, we need major computation power these days to analyze it all fully, but this won’t be an issue in five years, much less one hundred. If you can input all the data from a site and instantly compare every major building, object, skeleton, and technology with every other similar site, painting its complete picture is within reach.

  I, Archaeologist

  At the end of our glimpse into the future, we learn that Robbie is a mere tech, operating virtually, via his robot avatar and haptic technology, operated by a touch or gesture. That’s probably not so far away from where technology is right now. Virtual avatars are positively old hat in computer games, and we already use drone-mounted cameras to see places and things too difficult or dangerous to access, while controlling them with our tablets or computers. Think about how your TV video game system captures your movements.

  I’ve had a chance to test the next step, haptic technology in a futuristic driverless car where gentle movements to the left or right allowed me to change TV stations.34 This technology allows sensors to detect your movements and interprets them for computers or other machines. Movie effects of users swiping images off screens or through the air from feet away to design or research something, as in the Iron Man films and, years earlier, Minority Report, are now pretty much reality. Microsoft’s Kinect works in a similar way, allowing surgeons to manipulate MRIs and other images by body movements rather than touching a computer, thus keeping the operating room sterile,35 and simulated training now allows surgeons to practice operations before doing them.36 Remote surgeries—and archaeological excavations—may be right around the corner.

  Instead of an archaeological team of 20, plus a large local workforce and years of work, an army of robots controlled virtually by 20 technicians could fully explore 100 sites or more in a single day. Physical exploration, as wonderful and fun as it is, could be done far more effectively by our robot avatars. Current developments with robotic technology suggest we may get there in less than a hundred years.

  We have begun to see this shift already, as the practice of archaeology increasingly integrates with other scientific fields. From site recording to photography to analyzing our finds, archaeologists now see the importance of collaborating with our colleagues in computer science and engineering. In the future, I think it’s very likely that all archaeologists will develop an additional primary expertise within the sciences. Given the opportunity, students are already starting to make those kinds of course choices, and graduate students with strong scientific and interdisciplinary backgrounds have a far greater chance of employment. The nature and sustainability of current academic departmental models is well beyond the scope of this book, but we have to ask ourselves whether archaeology will become a sub-focus within the sciences.

  Robbie looks down his nose at the “old ways” of archaeology—people taking objects out of the ground and collecting them. Today, the 3-D scanning of objects and fossils has created global databases from which anyone can print versions in various media.37 Archaeologists now use 3-D-printed objects more often in the classroom, giving students across the globe a feel for precious items that are usually stored away in research labs, like skulls of early human ancestors.38

  The detail improves constantly. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are experimenting with reproducing colors and textures of materials39 and have already shown that their printers can work 10 times faster than standard 3-D devices.40 Perhaps this will be the true end of site looting, when collectors can get any ancient object they want in the original materials, distinguishable from the real thing only under powerful microscopes.

  Is There Anybody Out There?

  The great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”41 That brings us to what may be a big surprise: all this research may have little to do with archaeology on our own home hurtling through space, and everything to do with competing for the business of exploring potential civilizations on other planets. We already know about thousands of exoplanets thanks to powerful telescopes and advances in computer technologies. As I write this, two of those planets appear to be “Earthlike,” although this will take decades to confirm.42

  Just imagine the possibilities.

  The Drake Equation, created by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961,43 is the formula for the likelihood of there being intelligent life on other planets that’s advanced enough for us to detect via electromagnetic waves. As technology advances, the chances of that kind of detection increase. In the future, we will no doubt find more and more Earthlike planets and a potentially infinite number of exoplanets. We may someday get the radio waves that the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, seeks,44 or some other sign of life. And it will spur us to explore farther than we ever have.

  Aside from the question of how we define life, or indeed, material culture, we must ask how we can even begin to study things about which we will truly know nothing. Assuming we find a planet with life, and assuming we can even recognize its “settlements,” we will have no database of known artifacts with which to compare them. Whether it’s satellites or probes that find these worlds, we’re still relying on hitting the right time window when the settlement sites have not disappeared into dust. Astronauts and NASA engineers probably think they might be best equipped to study them, but archaeologists represent the only field fully equipped to explore and analyze an unknown material culture and its creators. They have my vote.

  The irony here does not escape me. For years, archaeologists have had to contend with inane alien theories, including claims that extraterrestrials built the pyramids or are responsible for basically anything anywhere that looks like innovative cultural development.45 These sentiments are actually racist and bigoted, and unfortunately they still hold wide appeal for those who cannot accept that people of a different skin color created monuments lasting millennia.

  Having fought for years against these theories, in outer space, archaeologists will become the aliens, using all our skills to grapple with the complete unknown. Archaeologists also know the history of Earth’s exploration and other cultural “first contacts” well, and can draw on thousands of years of what went terribly wrong. With luck, future archaeologists, or those employed at firms like ArchaeoVisiön, will use this sensitivity to avoid the pitfalls and horrors of past journeys. Or perhaps we will just invent new ones for future generations to condemn.

  A Window into Our Past

  I used to worry that NASA’s astronaut program excluded anyone without a bachelor of science degree—with my first degree a bachelor of arts, I can never be an astronaut, even with a specialization in remote sensing. But based on Elon Musk’s success with his Falcon Heavy launch in February 2018,46 I think our future astronauts may in fact come from the private sector. (Though, if anyone at NASA happens to be reading this, I’m still available!)

  My major concern is the one I presented with Robbie himself. As we move away from the dirt, the very thing that connects us with the past—the thing that gets beneath our fingernails and contains the real DNA of its past occupants47—will be lost. That great sense of anticipation while in the field, of not knowing everything, is what calls us back to the Earth and keeps us humble. You might get lucky in each and every season throughout your lifetime, or you might never make a major discovery. Or you might be wrong. Without that hazard and mystery, the possibility of failure, the archaeological wonder simply vanishes.

  Most archaeologists I know have great stories to tell of the discovery that got away—whet
her it lay just out of reach because they ran out of time or they were beaten to it by a colleague. Sometimes, it’s the great secret they know awaits their next season, if only the government would start issuing permits again. Archaeology is always a crapshoot. That’s why we keep rolling the dice. When computers do everything for archaeologists, we become the automatons pressing buttons at set times, and the computers become the explorers. It’s no longer fun when we cannot come up with a satisfying conclusion ourselves, or at least one that makes sense based on everything we know.

  Our techniques might be considered primitive by future explorers, and our behavior barbaric. I firmly believe certain antiquities collectors deserve to be judged in such terms. But as archaeology evolves, I do worry about the loss of that wonder, the sensation I have in front of the Pyramids of Giza even after dozens of visits. When tourists of the future put on their augmented reality glasses to experience a sped-up version of the pyramids’ construction, with virtual ancient Egyptian scribes giving them tours, will the experience be the same? Or will it be a futuristic theme park?

  Worse still, the idea that in the future archaeology could be perverted into a gigantic corporate moneymaking scheme, on a far bigger level than standard contracts in archaeology today, feels like ashes in my mouth. Today, we already fight for every penny from government sponsors, private donors, and more, and we know our resources are limited. Some would say any additional funding would be good funding, and we must accept that everything will not be roses in the future of exploration. We should think of all the good ways archaeology will advance as a field, and all the bad, to have the discussions needed now to take alternate paths.

  Childhood Dreams

  We’ve traveled from science fiction to science in this chapter. I’ve studied the field of archaeological surveying long enough to be able to sense my own shelf life, and the thought scares me. I am obsolescence in action, and all my colleagues who work in technology have that same fear.

  But there are occasions, in spite of it, when we get lucky and have a moment of discovery to carry us through even the darkest days. Sometimes it is the stuff that childhood dreams—and future visions—are made of. Our greatest treasure after all, is not Tutankhamun’s mask, but a window into the past, to light our way ahead.

  10

  The Challenge

  If you look at its history, archaeology has an entry fee of wealth, whiteness, and maleness. The “greats” in the field, the names you study in introductory archaeology classes, fit that ticket—from Jean-François Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone in 1822,1 to Frederick Catherwood, the early explorer of Maya ruins in Central America in the 1840s,2 and Hiram Bingham, the so-called discoverer of Machu Picchu in Peru in 1911.3 The Y chromosome is dominant. But X does mark the spot, after all.

  Women in the Field

  Women have participated in archaeological exploration from the beginning. Saint Helena (250–330 AD), the mother of Roman emperor Constantine, purportedly collected pieces of the true cross along with other holy relics, making her the first known female archaeologist and the Christian patron saint of archaeologists.4 Gertrude Bell, the subject of the film Queen of the Desert, is called the “Mother of Mesopotamian Archaeology,” and the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad owes its foundation to her. Fluent in Arabic, she shared invaluable diplomatic information about Iraqi politics during World War I that numerous British officers could otherwise not obtain.5

  Kathleen Kenyon, excavator of Jericho, the first major city of the ancient Near East, is considered one of the greatest archaeologists of the 20th century.6 She trained Donald Redford, an eminent Egyptologist, under whom I learned excavation on my first dig at Mendes—I like to think of her as my archaeological grandmother.

  It’s even possible, in fact, for a famous woman to be a clandestine archaeologist, and the evidence is right under your nose, much like a guilty murderer on a train. Yes, that train, and that author.

  Agatha Christie married Mesopotamian archaeologist Max Mallowan and accompanied him on digs to Iraq, which she loved.7 She wrote Death on the Nile while wintering in Aswan at the Old Cataract Hotel, an establishment you must visit before you die, to witness its ageless oriental splendor. Agatha loved marking pottery with tiny numbers, a job well suited to those who can patiently add detail to intricate mystery plots. In 1946, she published one of the greatest archaeological poems of all time, “A-sitting on a Tell,” part of which I share here:

  I’ll tell you everything I can

  if you will listen well:

  I met an erudite young man

  a-sitting on a Tell.

  “Who are you, sir?” to him I said.

  “For what is it you look?”

  His answer trickled through my head

  like bloodstains in a book.

  He said: “I look for aged pots

  of prehistoric days

  and then I measure them in lots

  and lots of different ways.

  And then (like you) I start to write,

  my words are twice as long

  as yours, and far more erudite.

  They prove my colleagues wrong!”

  But I was thinking of a plan

  to kill a millionaire

  and hide the body in a van

  or some large Frigidaire.

  So, having no reply to give,

  and feeling rather shy,

  I cried: “Come, tell me how you live!

  And when, and where, and why?” 8

  Simply glorious. The poem in its entirety speaks with gentle mockery and so much affection of what archaeologists do. Not much has changed in the decades since then, in terms of lifestyle, although Agatha certainly never had to worry about Wi-Fi connection issues on-site.

  Excavation photos from the 1940s do not look very different from those we take today. If you look closely, few people of the countries where the work took place appear as professional staff members. Fortunately, that is now changing, but not quickly enough. I addressed the American Schools of Oriental Research annual conference in November 2016, and it shocked me to see the sea of white. I’m lucky to teach at one of the most diverse college campuses in the country in Birmingham, Alabama, but Egyptology and the archaeology of the ancient Near East as a whole have a long way to go.

  We must increase outreach to middle- and high-school students, have active recruitment to increase student and faculty diversity, include more graduate student support and postdoctoral opportunities, have junior faculty mentoring … and on and on. The wonderful quote, “If you can see it, you can be it,” resonates deeply with me. We have to create experiences that not only invite everyone to participate in discovery but allow participants to see people from backgrounds they can relate to, so they can imagine their own future in a field they can shape.

  Across the board, we need to do better. More diversity in archaeology means a diversity of perspectives, approaches, and ideas—all so welcome. When more women started entering the field in the 1970s, gender archaeology began to take its rightful place. Now, with more acknowledgment of the contribution of LGBTQ+ scholars, we have a better understanding of the nuances of sexuality in the ancient world. Most archaeology graduate programs now report a greater percentage of women than men, but even so, I have seen too many female students turn away from academic careers because of family issues, harassment, and being passed over for funding or jobs.

  Things will change, and they must.

  Up to the 1960s, many women finished their archaeology and ancient-world doctorates before most colleges would hire women. The road ahead looked bleak. The best success story I know from that era is that of the great writer and storyteller Barbara Mertz, who wrote under the pen name Elizabeth Peters.9 Some of you may be fans of her work; I certainly am. She spun stories of the fictitious Amelia Peabody, Egyptologist and murder-mystery-solver extraordinaire.

  Barbara once told me that after finishing her PhD in 1947 at the University o
f Chicago, she could not find a job. Male Egyptologists told her she had wasted her time. At that point, she had always wanted to write, so write she did. Instead of scholarly articles, she started writing fiction, basing the world of Ms. Peabody on the heyday of Egyptology in the late 1800s. And, for good measure, she created characters based on those misogynist Egyptologists, and she killed them off in ways that each deserved. She died in 2013, a beloved Egyptology figure, a millionaire, and not caring one bit. I aspire …

  Admittedly, we have issues with the diversity of people doing archaeology in North America and Europe. But it is far worse in Central and South America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. When I sit down with archaeological and cultural heritage ministries overseas, women represent only 5 to 10 percent of the archaeologists I meet. This is a subject recognized by women in these countries, and it appears to be changing, with occasional news stories featuring up-and-coming women in archaeology.10 Let’s hope they become more frequent.

  Knowledge Is Not as Free as It Should Be

  Male or female, if you do not come from an upper-middle-class or a wealthy family, then your chances decrease for having an education, books, and internet access, let alone a successful career. If you’re lucky enough to have all these, plus the right connections, only then might you get the training you need to be an archaeologist. But as you begin your graduate work, you hit a literal wall. You’ll hit many of them: paywalls.

  Access to academic research represents one of the greatest hurdles to budding scientists across the world, when a single article from an online journal can cost $25 to download, which is easily a week’s wages for many government workers outside most Western countries. Journal subscriptions, bundled by corporate publishing superpowers such as Elsevier, can cost thousands of dollars, far beyond what any poorly funded ministry or university can afford. Academic publishing as an industry will hopefully be pushed to change by new open-access journals, where many of my colleagues and I now prefer to publish.