If I asked you to imagine a team of archaeologists, what's the first picture that would pop into your head? Probably a bunch of sweaty people sitting in a trench in rumpled sun hats and dusty boots, brows creased with concentration as they brush dirt off ancient bones and broken pottery. (It's a cool job!) But as Geoff Manaugh makes clear in his most recent feature for WIRED, that mental image may need updating. When you imagine archaeologists in the 21st century, they shouldn't just be digging. They should be zooming around Italian piazzas in little four-wheelers, using the latest radar technology to "produce an accurate snapshot of what's beneath centuries of cobblestone and brick, chewing gum and litter." They should be scanning entire Swedish islands in enough detail to make out the silhouette of a single Viking coffin (and maybe, one day, the horns on the occupant's helmet). They should be on their computers looking at Indigenous settlements that have long since dissolved into the soil, invisible to the human eye, undiggable by any trowel. In a story that ventures from modern streets to Roman ruins, including a stop for coffee and cake with a software wizard in Vienna, Manaugh rides along with some of these Big Data archaeologists, and their critics. —Anthony Lydgate | Features Editor |
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