Archaeology: noun the study of the buildings, graves, tools, and other objects that belonged to people who lived in the past, in order to learn about their culture and society – Cambridge Dictionary
Hold that thought, because what do we term as the past? Is it the ancient past, Neolithic, Medieval, – or of the two World Wars – how far into the modern world as we know of it today are we referring to ?
Archaeological type excavations have been used to uncover much more recent history on Earth including the recovery of remains from atrocities committed in modern conflicts. For example, The Batajnica mass graves are mass graves that were found in 2001 near Batajnica, a suburb of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The graves contained the bodies of 744 Kosovar Albanians civilians that were killed during the Kosovo War.
And now archaeology and its methodology has turned its attention towards Space and the human activity which has taken place there since October 4th 1957 when the USSR successfully launched Sputnik I.
Researchers led by Justin Walsh of Chapman University, California, have studied how astronauts interacted with areas aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The International Space Station Archaeological Project applies an archaeological framework to the ISS and studies the materials used by its crew as artifacts.
More than 270 people from 23 countries have visited the ISS over more than two decades. For their first direct work on the space station, the team adapted a traditional archaeological strategy known as the shovel test pit, in which small pits are dug at intervals across a site to assess artifact distribution and select areas for more extensive excavation. In this case, the archaeologists asked the ISS crew to document six locations around the station, and instead of digging pits, taking daily photos of each location for 60 days in 2022.
Initial findings show how areas have been adapted by the astronauts.
Test ‘pits’ designated include:
- an area for equipment maintenance
- an area near the latrine and exercise equipment.
Further analysis of photos in these areas using a novel open-source image analysis platform developed by the team revealed 5,438 instances of “artifacts” being used for varied purposes, such as writing tools, Post-It notes, and an augmented reality headset.
Cross-referencing the photos with astronaut activity reports, the researchers found that the area near the exercise equipment and latrine, while not designated for any particular purpose, had been used as storage for toiletries, resealable bags, and a rarely used computer. The equipment maintenance area was used primarily for storage, with little or no maintenance actually carried out there.
These findings demonstrate how traditional archaeological techniques can be adapted to study remote or extreme habitats. The findings could also help inform development of future space habitats.
The authors add:
“The experiment is the first archaeology ever to happen off of the planet Earth. By applying a very traditional method for sampling a site to a completely new kind of archaeological context, we show how the ISS crew uses different areas of the space station in ways that diverge from designs and mission plans. Architects and planners of future space stations can learn valuable lessons from this work.”
Click on this link to access, Archaeology in space: The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE) on the International Space Station. Report 1: Squares 03 and 05, published in PLOS One
The International Space Station was designed between 1984 and 1993. Elements of the station were in construction throughout the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe beginning in the late 1980s. Expedition 71 began on April 5, 2024 and ends in September 2024. This crew will explore neuro-degenerative diseases and therapies, space botany, space-caused fluid shifts, and algae-based life support systems.
Fiona Grahame