I don’t know about you, but there have been a lot of random times when I or someone near me has said, “Someday archaeologists are going to have a field day with…” as we looked at everything from satellite dishes to really weird statues and wondered what they would think..
But archeological exploration of modern technology may not have to wait for the far future.
It’s reasonable to think, someday, in this generation or the next, researchers will very carefully confirm if the Apollo astronauts’ footsteps are still on the Moon. Researchers may track down the crash site of The Beagle 2 on Mars, and make a final determination of why it crashed. They may even predict the rate at which Spirit Rover is buried beneath dust and sand.
In a new paper in the journal Geoarchaelogy, with first author Justin Holcomb, researchers suggest these future studies be called Planetary geoarchaeology.
According to Halcomb, “We feel that all material currently existing on extraterrestrial surfaces is space heritage and worthy of protection. We should begin tracking our material record as it continues to expand, both to preserve the earliest record but also to keep a check on our impact on extraterrestrial environments. It’s our job as anthropologists and archaeologists to bring issues of heritage to the forefront.”
As we move forward, planning new missions to worlds we’ve already visited, it will become necessary to balance the needs of science against the needs of preservation of historical sites. This suggests that tomorrow’s planetary geoarchaeologists should begin training today.
Further, this work suggests, “geoarchaeologists on Earth can lay the foundation for that work, including advocating for laws to protect and preserve space heritage, studying the effects extraterrestrial ecosystems have on items space missions leave behind and conducting international discussions regarding space heritage preservation and protection issues.”
Reference:
Holcomb, J.A., O’Leary, B., Darrin, A.G., Mandel, R.D., Kling, C. and Wegmann, K.W., 2023. Planetary geoarchaeology as a new frontier in archaeological science: Evaluating site formation processes on Earth’s Moon. Geoarchaeology, 38(5), pp.513-533. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gea.21966