Archaeology From Space

I don’t personally know any archaeologists. But if I could single out one who is an unapologetic apologist for archaeology, it would be Sarah Parcak. Her book, Archaeology From Space, won the most recent Phi Beta Kappa Book Award for Science. I heard about it when I tuned in to the online awards ceremony. Parcak’s brief remarks about her book were all that was needed for me to add it to my must-read list. I was not disappointed.

 

I’d heard of using LIDAR mapping to discover archaeological sites through perusing the occasional news article. What I didn’t know was that prior to LIDAR, older eye-in-the-sky technologies were already aiding archaeologists. I also didn’t know that you and I can aid archaeology from the comfort of our homes and an internet connection through Global Xplorer, launched by Parcak and her team after she received the 2016 TED million-dollar prize for her dream-big audacity. I’m looking forward to seeing Peru from Space!

 

Satellite imagery gives you a starting point, a narrowing down of possibilities. Then comes the hard work of dig-in-the-dirt archaeology. Parcak goes into fascinating detail focusing on some well-chosen examples in her career; successes and failures both get the royal treatment. Her story-telling is brisk and bursting with enthusiasm; reading it I felt like I was right there in the thick of things. And she’s funny. Humorous asides punctuate the text all over. I believe her when she thanks her editor in her acknowledgement for the “tough love and for reading early drafts containing terrible jokes that needed to be buried in tombs forever. May they never resurface.” Well, the jokes that she did leave in bring joy to this reader!

 

While Parcak is an Egyptologist by specialty, and she goes into fascinating detail in this area, her many collaborations lead to projects in North America, Europe, and South America. I enjoyed reading about different archaeological sites, different concerns, different challenges, and how much we can learn about the past. The chapter on looting and the trade in antiquities is heartbreaking. Many people involved are caught in a system fueled on the one hand by greed, and on the other hand by poverty. Not knowing much about this area, I found it particularly eye-opening.

 

My favorite chapter in her book is “The Future of the Past”. (This reminds me I should re-read Alexander Stille’s excellent book of the same name. I see it on my bookshelf beckoning!) Parcak begins by imagining a future archaeotechnician in the year 2119 acquiring data with the help of several scanning bots. She then ties the different activities to what’s possible now, what’s in the near-future, and what’s not so easy to achieve. She also makes what I think is a prescient prediction: “In the future, I think it’s very likely that all archaeologists will develop an additional primary expertise within the sciences… [those] with strong scientific and interdisciplinary backgrounds have a far greater chance of employment… we have to ask ourselves whether archaeology will become a sub-focus within the sciences.”

 

What got me really excited was reading about hyperspectral imaging in archaeology. As a chemist attempting to get students interested in making visible the invisible (via the interaction of “light and matter”), I’m starting to re-imagine different aspects of my G-Chem 1 class to make it archaeologically-themed. We already talk about different types of spectroscopy to identify the structures of atoms, molecules, and crystalline solids, but I hadn’t connected this to a larger systemic context; maybe archaeology could be the link! I could even tie it to space exploration, as Parcak does with both wit and aplomb. Why is it that I’m always excited about revamping a class shortly after I’ve finished teaching it? I’ll need to wait until next fall. Right now I need to focus on G-Chem 2 as the spring semester is about to begin.

 

While I find archaeology fascinating, I’ve never pictured myself as an archaeologist because I don’t think I could survive the hard, painstaking, outdoor work in terrible weather. I much prefer reading from my armchair. A number of years back, I did incorporate a book by archaeologists into a first-year living-learning-community that my G-Chem class was a part of. Perhaps I could do something similar with Parcak’s book, but I’ll have to think more about how exactly this might work. Oh, so many ideas, so little time! At least Parcak’s book motivated me to play Thebes this weekend. That’s the closest I get to being an archaeologist. Until I get going on Global Xplorer. I’m holding off for at least a month because early in the semester is not a good time to potentially get addicted, and not put in the time doing my actual job as a chemistry professor.