The concept of the past—that there are layers and layers of civilization, and that each culture is in a very real sense built upon the cultures that came before it—is at the very heart of what archaeologists do. As we dig down through layers of dirt, we’re not just uncovering objects. We’re uncovering our deep connection to the past.
And, of course, someday, we will be the past. Our civilization, our culture, will be long gone, and future archaeologists will be uncovering their connections to us. Our iPhones, Barbie dolls, Walmart stores, and McDonald’s arches will all be the object of study by future archaeologists. Therefore, I’d like to take this opportunity to look forward into the future and try to address two issues. One is the question of how archaeologists will interpret us—that is, our society and civilization—in the future. The other concerns how archaeologists will actually do archaeology in the future—that is, what new tools and techniques they will be using.
I’ve been talking about something that I call “future archaeology” ever since I saw two television shows that were made after Alan Weisman published his best-selling book The World without Us.1 One was shown on the National Geographic Channel and was called Aftermath: Population Zero. The other, Life without People, was shown on the History Channel. Both of them, like Weisman’s book, considered what would happen to our cities and monuments in years to come if we humans ceased to exist. The television shows included footage of the Eiffel Tower crumbling, the Space Needle in Seattle falling down, lions roaming the grounds of the White House, and the like.
What would a team of archaeologists find two hundred years from now if all humans (besides the archaeologists themselves) disappeared today? What about two thousand years hence? How would they interpret what they found, and how would they reconstruct our society?
Leaving aside for the moment all the big administrative buildings, schools, homes, highways, bridges, roads, airports, and so on, what would remain of structures like the Washington Zoo or the Smithsonian museums, or even Starbucks and McDonald’s? What would be found in their ruins? Would they be identified properly? That is, would it be obvious that one was once a zoo and one a coffee shop? And if they were misidentified, what would archaeologists think that they had been?
The zoo might cause a bit of a problem, unless one could still read the signs that were once posted everywhere. Identification would also depend upon whether all the animals had managed to escape, in which case all the cages would be found empty, or whether they had been trapped inside and the team found their skeletons. If one found the skeletons and could read the signs, it would be pretty obvious what the site once was, but otherwise perhaps not.
The Smithsonian museums, or any large museum for that matter, like the Met in New York City or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, will definitely present problems until it dawns on the archaeologists that they are excavating a museum. Any building that has the Hope Diamond, dinosaurs, and a large whale is sure to cause much confusion and discussion, until they realize that they have been excavating the National Museum of Natural History.
Personally, though, I think it’s going to be places like Starbucks and McDonald’s that will generate the most confusion. Specifically, I think there is a good chance of misidentifying Starbucks as a religion, complete with a crowned goddess with flowing locks, and with her shrine or temple located on virtually every block or street corner. The same thing could be said for McDonald’s, except in this case the deity being worshipped has a known name—Ronald McDonald—and has red hair and dresses in gaudy clothes. Or maybe the archaeologists of the future will conclude that Ronald and the Starbucks goddess stand at the head of a pantheon, like Zeus and Hera for the Greeks and Jupiter and Juno for the Romans.
I jest, and yet, if enough relevant records do not survive, such interpretations could be made by future archaeologists. Already when we’re on excavations and find something that we don’t immediately understand, we half-jokingly call it cultic or religious.
Future archaeology is interesting to think about, especially since we spend so much time looking at previously vanished cultures and don’t usually consider what our own culture is going to look like to future archaeologists. Consider, for instance, the fact that so many of our interactions are now online. Most of those interactions will vanish without a trace or will be inaccessible to future archaeologists, and so what will they conclude about our rate of literacy, for instance? And if they find that things halted suddenly, as they did in Pompeii back in 79 CE, what will they think about the ubiquitous rectangular blobs of metal, plastic, glass, and circuitry—many of them found clutched in someone’s hand—that seem to be associated with every skeleton? Will they have any idea that these once were communication devices?
A similar thought experiment was undertaken back in 1979, when David Macaulay published a great short illustrated book called Motel of the Mysteries. The premise of the book is this: Life in North America is basically extinguished in a single day in 1985. Then, in the year 4022 CE, amateur archaeologist Howard Carson accidentally stumbles upon an ancient site, which turns out to be the Motel of the Mysteries. He then brings in a team to help him, including an assistant named Harriet Burton.2
Obviously, “Howard Carson” is based on Howard Carter, and his assistant “Harriet Burton” is based on the real-life Harry Burton, who was an Egyptologist and the photographer during Carter’s very real excavation of King Tut’s tomb. Macaulay has a lot of fun with references to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, including the famous phrase that Carter, or rather Carson in this case, utters—namely, that he sees “wonderful things.”3 Finding two skeletons, he believes that he has discovered a tomb. Instead, as it turns out, he has found what we—the knowing readers—recognize is actually a motel room.
Carter and Burton’s misinterpretations of their finds are hilarious and include many inside archaeological jokes, but their story also illustrates what I said a moment ago—that if we don’t know what something is, we often think it might be religious. Thus, in what he calls the “Outer Chamber,” Macaulay’s Howard Carson finds everything facing “the Great Altar,” including the body that is still lying on top of the “Ceremonial Platform” and is still holding in its hand “the Sacred Communicator.” Of course, we recognize these: the “Great Altar” is none other than a television set; the “Ceremonial Platform” is just a bed; and the “Sacred Communicator” is the remote control for the TV.4 And yet in this setting, two thousand years after the fact and with nothing else to go on, Howard Carson interprets all this as religious.
Macaulay tops it all off by having Harriet Burton put on and proudly wear the “Sacred Headband” and “Sacred Collar” that were still in place on the “Sacred Urn” when they found them. The accompanying illustration makes it quite clear that she is, in fact, wearing a toilet seat around her neck as the “Sacred Collar,” and it is the strip of paper that says “sanitized for your protection” that is wrapped around her head as the “Sacred Headband.” Two toothbrushes are dangling from her ears as “plastic ear ornaments,” and she is wearing the rubber stopper for the bathtub drain as an “exquisite silver chain and pendant.” Even better, the drawing is a dead ringer for the famous photograph that Heinrich Schliemann took of his wife, Sophia, when she was wearing all the jewelry from Priam’s Treasure that he found at Troy.5
This is what it may come to when someone in the future excavates Starbucks, McDonald’s, museums, zoos, and possibly even motels from our time. All humor aside, it is worthwhile thinking about the fact that our current culture may be wildly misinterpreted by future archaeologists, and that we may occasionally, or perhaps even often, misinterpret the past. That is an occupational hazard, but usually—once enough data is found—we come to a scholarly consensus about the proper interpretation of a building or a site or even a civilization.
And what about how archaeologists will actually do archaeology in the future—that is, what new tools and techniques will they be using? Of course, we have absolutely no way of knowing the answer, just as Heinrich Schliemann and Howard Carter could not have predicted the use of remote-sensing techniques that have now been employed at both Troy and King Tut’s tomb.
It is beyond doubt that there will continue to be advances in technology, which will allow us to peer even more easily beneath the earth, or beneath the tree canopies in Central America and Cambodia, before we begin digging. For instance, I am absolutely convinced, and have been saying for years, that there must be a better way to conduct remote sensing. Apart from LiDAR, most of the techniques that we are using, such as magnetometers, resistivity, and so on, are now decades old. It is time for new advances. In fact, some advances are already beginning to emerge; for example, fluxgate gradiometers and cesium magnetometers have replaced proton magnetometers on some projects.6 As I’ve said before, using remote sensing can minimize the need for digging, allowing us potentially to destroy less and to do more work before ever breaking ground.
I wonder, for instance, whether in the future it might be possible to detect things like plaster or other specific materials through a layer of earth, just as we can now detect buried walls and ditches. Could some of the techniques being used by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in airports, for example, to catch drug runners and find explosives, be repurposed to detect chemical compounds belonging to artifacts still buried in the earth? And would it make sense to partner with gas and oil exploration companies, to utilize new techniques that might allow us to peer deeper into a mound, or to do so in a series of slices, at specific depths? I do think that the time is ripe for another series of technological breakthroughs, but I think it is also a matter of talking to the right engineering people, perhaps someone who would say, “Wait, you want to do what? Oh yeah, we can do that, no problem.”
I also think that we will see new analytical techniques coming from chemistry, biology, and especially DNA studies, such as are emerging already. Conservation techniques will continue to improve, so that we will be able to preserve more of what we find. Above all, there should be greater sensitivity to community needs and community goals for archaeology, and an increase in collaborative projects between archaeologists and local communities, so that the people whose heritage is being explored have a greater say in what happens to the artifacts of that heritage.7
Moreover, I think that it is fairly safe to say that the actual process of physically digging—that is, excavating with picks, shovels, trowels, and dental tools—will continue as it has since the very first days of archaeology. The number of ways that one can dig carefully and yet quickly, without destroying the remains, is limited. Still, I could be surprised, for some new digging techniques may be invented that I cannot even begin to imagine at the moment. What will not change is the archaeological axiom that the best things on a dig are always found on the last day of the excavation season … and almost always in the balk.
In my office at George Washington University, I have two bumper stickers pasted on the wall. The first one says simply, “Archaeology: I’d rather be digging.” The second one says, “Archaeologist. The coolest job on Earth. I save the past, what do you do?” Just as bumper stickers should, they encapsulate my feelings about archaeology in a nutshell—I really would rather be digging. But they also issue a challenge to the rest of the world. Archaeology is not only about finding the remains that have been left from past civilizations. It’s also about preserving and curating those remains for future generations. I hope that this book, like my larger volume Three Stones Make a Wall, lends itself, even in some small way, to that aim. I also hope that those of you who are about to go on your first archaeological excavation have the time of your lives and the experience of a lifetime. Good luck and happy digging!