Thousands of years into our own history and discover what otherwise be completely invisible to us. Sarah has worked on five continents and over 20 years of experience in anthropology. National geographic explorer as well. Ancient egypt rome and the vikings and she at a 2014 senior fellow and the winner of the 2016 that price. She at joined by an astronomer. Stars influence a planets suitability as for hopes of alien live. She at also an artist and worked in a variety of media. Welcome to both of you. [applause]. Sarah thank you everybody for coming. Will you talk to the space archaeologist person. I was like well [laughter] i guess we talked a little bit backstage in a kind of wanted to kick off just by talking about first of all, congratulate sarah on her cook. [applause] has anyone here read it so far. I see at least one copy here doctor way. I have partially read it. I wanted to hear a little bit about how the cook came around. The American Writers Museum and i thought it would be fun about space and archaeology and writing. It all started in 2016, shortly after i had won a prize, my tv agent had been coaxing me for a while and say you should really write a cook. I move authors and i thought i knew better than to write a cook. When i find the time. I have young child and a big platform, i dont know about writing a cook. But now im thinking its time. I have written an academic cook. That seems much easier than writing a cook for the general public. I can give it our talk and i can give lectures, just writing something, 80 thoughts and words that people would actually want to read. I joked that if you have trouble sleeping at night you should buy my textbook. Just read the first few pages of the third chapter and if they are not asleep, you must be a specialist. In the process of thinking about the proposal and thinking through all of the books that were out there for the general public about archaeology first of all, there really arent popular books about archaeology or archaeology by women. I think in academia right now we are having a bit of a moment. For women and people of color in making this to me at incredibly important. So the idea i could write something and show people that not only can i do it, but it at necessary. We need to provide these opportunities. Not just storytellers. Archaeology at one stone at a stone and two stones at a feature in three stones make a wall. And if you combine forces together, you probably found a templin. Thats a joke in the archaeology world. This at what has really drove me to write the cook. I think this at something that people dont think about in science that one data. At a potentially interesting discovery into his line its no error bars and three at definitely a line and like for his totally a trend. In the universe. [laughter] there at a certain element of storytelling that comes its it as well. It might be helpful and i am not totally sure everyone at familiar its this one at exactly different about the archaeology that you do and what space archaeologist do. It might be helpful to give a recap of that. Sarah we spent a lot of time looking for things. Were assisted by a lot of tools on the ground to help us see beneath the ground. When we are dealing its a massive landscape, prior to area photography and satellites, its really hard to figure out where things were. So the field of space archaeology at the use of different kinds of satellite sensors and airbase sensors to map and model ancient landscape. Think of it almost like a space stage cant scan system where you have varied features and sometimes very things like pyramids and houses and the stones in the materials that are under the ground, affect the overlay vegetation and soil and very subtle ways that we cant see its our naked human eye. When the satellites regarding all of this information in different parts of the light spectrum that we cant see and reprocess it by using algorithms and all of a sudden these features pop out in the landscape. Instead of being able to map a survey, ten flights or 15 flights over the course of the season, we move exactly where to go. We can find hundreds if not thousands of sites very quickly. But archaeology, its not about finding its about finding out. We do at we ask science hypothesis driven research. How and why did civilization and driver collapse. How or why did the city grown in importance and all of a sudden it wasnt important. Maybe its because the river changed course and all of a sudden the city lost main transportation. These are the types of things we look for using salad satellite imagery. We move exactly where to go. Talk to me a little bit about what they are actually data looks like. So this at essentially digital photography in the same way that astronomy people have that picture which if you come to the effort you can come to see a whole bunch of telescopes that you can look through and see what they look like. Nowadays, telcos have the telescopes that professional astronomers use, most of the time like my job looks like me in front of a laptop. When people want to come and interview me, they are asking i am doing anything cool today. But it just looks like me in front of the laptop. Affect [laughter] its not, to me its really exciting. Most scientists spend long time writing grants and writing reports anytime we do science, at really exciting. But it doesnt look exciting. And archaeology we go from the known to the unknown. Whenever, some people think that i have a magical harry potter wand. And i way that over a satellite imagery and the ghostly outlines just appear. That is there in three d. Maybe that goes on in my head but that is absolutely not have the signs happens. So we do if we are looking at particular landscape say egypt. And working in an area like saqqara, lots of pyramids from over two thoughts and years. We develop databases of all the known archaeological sites and features in that area. Where ever in the world we are working. Then we start looking at the landscape the geology. At it sand, at a part of the floodplain, at a hilly, or any kind of elevations. One of the sizes and shapes and orientations of all of the features that are there. What pyramids and temples and segments are there. We start looking at all the pictures of everything that is there. This at before we even order the satellite imagery. You have to move what they are looking at, you have to move if there any hands underneath the ground that is really easy to get things wrong. I hope i am pretty honest in the cook about times when i was wrong. This could be honest about science. Science at a long process of failure in an iteration in repeating and helping you get something right. One out of a thoughts and times if they are lucky. So when they are processing the imagery, its in phases, so you are doing work and they are teasing that information very slowly its different kinds of algorithms and finding that you might find a hint of an outline of a shape. Then you really focus in on that area. We find something that works, you extrapolate and you apply it to a larger part of the image. By the way i should say this at a super collaborative project. I am Never Working by myself. I voice collaborating its my friends and colleagues in egypt are scotland or iceland or and we are constantly sharing information. There at never a figueroa archaeologist. I am always part of a team. Give or take an Indiana Jones and a leather jacket. This at the part i am very jealous of. You actually get to go to the place that the thing you are looking at at. And you get it to check it out. Its really not an option for me. [laughter] i guess id like to move a little bit about the process of that print you do a lot of this recon and the images that you have. You actually ordered new data, new satellite images to be taken. At one point do you actually get to go there. Are there places that you get to go and we do find out if they are wrong. [laughter]. Sarah usually what we do by this collaborative process, from working its my team called global export, we will all look at imagery and crosscheck each other and come up its a top ten list. Other interesting things that look like features that are known or estimated already and we will send them to specialist. Lets just say, at in place like scotland, so we send them off to specialist and viking. And no write back and say features one and eight and ten look amazing. I do not move what they are smoking we do are looking at two or three. Its like nothing that is there. I think these three things are definitely worth checking out and honestly i go its eight. That looks the best to us. So we rely very heavily on the specialists of the region. Obviously its a little different when i am working in other parts of the world i really do rely on other experts. Then sometimes it can be pretty quick if we are already collaborating and we are in a move to a particular place of the for the next month or six months. And will go. In egypt the process a little bit different. Ive been working at the same site its called a list and at very old and been working there since 2015. We started our funding process before our season begins. I work its a very kind production of the egyptian government. Theyre very strict rules and regulations about ron that process. We have to tell them exactly where we are going. Im very lucky and fortunate that i get to travel all over the world. Were wrapping up a project in peru and getting ready to go to india. I joke its people in the middle of the winter that i definitely dream of doing some projects in fiji. Who knows maybe i will work there someday. You will get no sympathy for getting out of alabama and going to chicago in the winter. [laughter]. Allison talk about global explorer. Sarah one of the Big Questions we have in archaeology versus how many sites are out there lift to find. Also how do you think or how can we create sort of a more equitable world for expiration and right now to specialize to be able to access the data. Theres a couple of hundred or eight i dont know how many people there are who specialize in what i do but if i decided to set up global exposure which at a citizen platform which allows anyone to find ancient sites because there are only so many of us. Most governments around the world dont have databases of archaeological sites. How many flaws are there or particulars be species. If you were back in our and ours archaeological no archaeologist would be able to answer how many sites there are. You create a platforming and you allow to look and work much faster and more efficiently and most of the time when im looking at imagery, im just looking and looking and looking and looking and not finding anything. So its global explorer, today i think its animals 90 thoughts and users from a hundred and 20 countries and they have found over 20 thoughts and potential archaeological features in peru, and about 700 of them have been determined by experts to be major sites. Allison this at amazing. Citizen science, have you heard this before . Thats kind of the phrase for all of this exploration of what otherwise be technical data that is generally speaking historically been very accessible to people who dont have some kind of Technical Training whether it at in archaeology or whether it at in astronomy. One of the things that we do at the embers we something called universe. This wasnt project that started at something called galaxy zoo just about a decade or more now. There were all of these images of galaxies in big collections of billions of stars out in space and people were interested in exploring them but its a big task to take all of these images and go through and take them and label them as to what kind of galaxy there are rated so this Online Platform database based started much in the same way they are describing its global, one of the things i think has been really interesting about that is nowadays the universe hosts like tons of stuff. I dont think we have our catalog archaeology specifically but we do have old whether where you look at ship logs me that. Our snapshots of animals. Count the number of penguins in this image. In addition, ruppercaseletter where we look for planets around other stars. People who are not astronomers who dont generally speak or have the ability to write a program that i would if i were interacting its the data, have done things like find new planets around the other stars that were discovered by people in its professional astronomy training. Its amazing to find this Expiration Date micro site in that way. Archaeology for some people are at hard it can be expensive to get other places. It at an incredibly big field if you are able bodied to go it can be really hard. Especially since having a child i see where you are naturally born explorers. They questioned when we launch global explorers at can we truly demark wrote archaeology, we just didnt want to date someone fun for kids. We wanted something that would work at that archaeologist could work use and generate important data. Also allow people to deal its the science that i and my colleagues do. To design things and plant an Important Role in creating a platform before we began element its, we spent about six months speaking to people behind the platforms and we spent a lot of time to people of all ages and backgrounds by the types of things that they wanted to see. An platform like this. We had users as young as four and five. We had kids as old as in the 90s. And older. The idea that weve developed something for everyone that people feel really connected to at very important to me. Also we have now because we are really developing the platform, we hope it will be open next year, we got feedback from the many of hundreds of people about things they liked and the like. Were taking all of that in incorporating and that in how we are developing it. Making it a better experience for everyone. Allison have there been examples that experts have missed. Sarah there at been one case and my favorite, focused on an area in peru which at very famous that is massive juleps that monkeys and birds and butterflies that the notes give people carved into the landscape and its kind of debated as to what their purpose was in archaeology. We say its for ritual purposes. [laughter] clearly very important to those people. Our citizens scientists found many dozens of new potential sites. Then we share them its my dear friend who has just been named that an minister of culture in peru. He then took the data and went out and was doing drone mapping. He at a side result of mapping these two sites, ended up finding 15 new things. This data can be taken and given and help empower local archaeologist to me at just an extension of citizen archaeology. We give people on the ground who move best, tools that they need that they might not otherwise have access to. Allison we are kind of seeing this moment in academia which i think at happening to some extent everywhere kind of leveling the playing fields. Space being made for people have been excluded traditionally from some of these practices. Its really been encouraging for me to see the emphasis on collaboration. It exists in both of our fields where this lone genius at next. You look at einstein or maybe ill pick a fictional character doc brown from back to the future. This often who they picture when they picture an astronomy astronomer and they also picture Indiana Jones. Its been really gratifying to me to see the way that the teamwork at becoming more part of the fee narrative. Thats how it ends. Even any of these socalled famous lone geniuses who are from history and a body of colleagues that they were talking to. I often get asked. Sarah people think i have a harry potter wand. The reality at that i am a combination of manager and ceo and diplomat and food planner and nurse. It at my job to make sure that my team which at composed of about 100 egyptians and foreigners are able to do their jobs really really well. I run a joint mission its i have equal amount of egyptians and participants. Ive been a codirector, i have a staff that work its probably about 60 to 70 local workmen intimate the workman at throwing up the buckets its sand at ever bread at important as a senior professor specialist who has written 100 articles in a particular subject. Everyone plays a crucial role in our kindle colleges havent done as good of a job celebrating the whole workforce. Frankly we can do it that went out them. And my job i just go around to make sure my team has coffee and snacks, i make sure that when the ceramic team as well as glue, i move so that they can get glue and then they do the job really well. At that in the day, i am responsible for my team his health and safety and wellbeing. The egyptian workforce and the foreign work force. And i am response will to the Us Government who has helped fund my project. At my job to help keep things moving. My husband who at also an archaeologist. He used to run projects and now i do. My job at also to make sure he at happy excavating for years and years he had the hat that i were now. And i appreciate it so much more its really hard work. Its not usually fun but at the end of the day, every now and again i get stick my trial in the ground and remember what its like before i was responsible. Thats a good reminder. Allison my version at that i get to write a couple of lines of codes. Indiana jones at also at giving out snacks and coffee. To equalize and demark right but democratize this period were often caught up in the terrible things that the internet has brought. [laughter] he really at something that i think wouldnt have been possible that went out the, i wonder if we can talk about the history of Remote Sensing. Once upon a time it was him. Canisters of film. Sarah so the first Remote Sensing of an archaeology site happened around 1908 around stonehenge. That was the first one. British lieutenant camera on a balloon and took pictures on stonehenge and when he noticed was standing in the field and on the site and archaeologist looked at that and said wait a minute, this could be like varied features. So over time, the field developed and world war i people taking pictures of archaeologists sort of in the nascent royal air force. They went out its their camp hobby cameras and took pictures of this. They show them to their captains. They said you can take pictures quest mark of things from airplanes . We could use this to spite on the bad guys for the people they said to her the bad guys. So its ironic, archaeology actually started in the field recounted since in the military. That kind of slipped around someone of the main data steps that we use now, at something called corona height spy photography. In the 1960s. In the cold war and its important to us because it preserves landscape that are no longer around. A lot of archaeologists are look using the data in addition to satellites. Be one private historical connection to corona and we both have familiar connections that brought us into doing what we do. I often think its ironic when people talk about the new era of private industry going into space. I Companies Like new orleans, space x which at other things. Because of the history of observation from space, which was actually like satellite and condescends its corona, was private companies. The very first satellites that would print into space to actually observe the earth that brought back these images were in part developed by a Company Called itech. My father was in the air force and my father had me when he was a lot older for anyone at doing the math, he was 59 when i was born. So he was actually in the air force to marine the cold war ended a lot of the intelligence work. He had actually transitioned into private industry and was the only person working in the rockefeller venture fund. He has security clearance to move that itech his main contractor wasnt cia developing the satellites. Its like how that whole thing got started. We have this long history both and ill mention this also comes into astronomy observing the earth from space. Very much started its military Intelligence Surveillance and even today, this was back in 2012 or 2013, astronomy got a call we suddenly were told work made its way ground that there were two new telescopes that just had the wrong focal length that we can have from the national condescends office if we wanted. [laughter] so their missions being plan right now called the reverse where you retrofit something, you can use it to look out in space. And its submission that will probably lunch the next several years here. Does this longstanding overlap between satellite surveillance of earth and observation of space in astronomy as well. My grandfather work on this as well. He was in the san diego in world war ii, we just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the jump by the paratroopers and he got the stateoftheart at the time. It wasnt little foldout black and white contour map that he kept in his pocket so that when he landed, over 75 years ago, he unfolded it and read that landscape to meet up its his man. He wasnt captain then. It took this knowledge its him to graduate school and using this new cuttingedge technology to map trees and tree heights. I sorta found his article from the 1950s, thanks to the miracle of the internet. He talks about what we would find in what can we see an infrared. Its amazing because all the work for almost word for word i mustve been channeling him when a rose on my early academic papers because they are very similar to each other. So as infrared light used now in the mapping that in the work that you do now. So if they are not familiar, in infrared his heat vision. Its a red low Energy Spectrum of light a little bit outside of where your eyes are sins and two. You probably seen heat vision and movies but at also used in Remote Sensing. They are essential its the work that i do so you think if you remember not the summer and summer before there wasnt big drop in the uk and there are many articles that came out showing all of these outlines of medieval churches and iron age no force. They just showed up in the landscape. This at because when vegetation at growing, on top of say as some structure, its roots are going to be sent to dennis not going to be only go as deep. Physically we cant see that that grass at a little bit less healthy but in the Near Infrared which at where we see chlorophyll reflected. You see it as just a little bit less healthy. Its one thing to just see a blog but its another thing entirely to see an outline of an entire building. That is what we often will see and when we are processing imagery and the different parts of the light spectrum. It may not be a stonewall in england or it may be a brick wall buried in the desert in egypt and we can see the differences as the mud degrades into the celtic soil. In the middle infrared which at really good for differences in geology. The actual heat in some cases it at hotter or colder than the area around it so use the satellite imagery to find differences. Everywhere in the world at different. We use different technologies depending on what the structures were made from. Allison we use the same thing at space to be able to look out and specifically the infrared at really important for us for studying things that are shrouded in dust. Also for looking very far back in time. The expansion of the unit universe shifts all of that light that would be an invisible portion for our eyes if it were close to us. Far into the red and the more safely we can look into the universe and also the further into the red that we can look, we end up getting to see further back in time. Takes a while for that light to come to us. I also just bring you back to the cold war for second, recently was reading a cook about the history of the area 51. Beware a lot of Flight Technology and advanced aeronautical engineering was on. I read this really great and take note that because a lot of the bonuses was done in the infrared, when they roared in the downtime they would sometimes construct weird shapes. On the exposed runways and then put heat sources like heaters or run machines really hot so that soviet flyovers would be like its that. [laughter] it at really funny. Ive heard at because the photographs are taken every time at the exact same time, so you can actually if you get a notification from the satellite company, that the satellite at going to take those picture in a particular place at a particular time, you can line up i have heard of that being done before. Most of the time people behave. Sometimes they dont. So we do think of some of the Small Satellite Companies that are out there now and some of the efforts to take additional surveillance of the planet and study it that way. At there any overlap its your work and use that data. Sarah there at always a tradeoff in the work that i do. Its a resolution versus the temporal nature of the imagery. So first of all, its not just like i can take or get a satellite in place like egypt or iceland or india or wherever we are looking in the images going to work. Satellite imagery works very generally in different times of the year because of the same weather. That season versus dry season went versus dry. Some show up in january and then in august i can throw the entire remote system kid his sake at the site and i cant see a thing. Its all because of the weather and the way the ground act in relationship to groundwater moisture. When i am mapping things like our kilo of tickle sites i am looking for progression of illusion over time. It becomes much more important because i am looking for a site being looted or weeks or months of the Resolution Imagery and sigh may be better but it may not see the progression. So for us, will use any and all data that we can. The great thing about a lot of these things at the imagery for us at free. The ceos and the people around the companies are super collaborative they want their data to be used. The idea that we can use it anywhere in the world and there at tons of Data Available at of course there are tradeoffs its privacy. I joke its my students about it wont be is it too long for now theyre going to have to shut their shades. Because the satellites can see through windows and what happens within resolution at good enough so that we can begin picking out individual people. What at that due to us and what at a mean. Allison this at a huge question and the funny thing about astronomy at that because we are causally looking out and a lot of our decisions about what projects we undertake or science questions we decide to pursue, for many, have not been impacted people that often. We are not working for example in human subjects where there at a whole lot of ethical training that goes into it. However, one of the things and i think this at true in your field as well that image processing, ability to look at images its computer algorithms and dry out things you wouldnt have been able to buy i, has become more and more important in astronomy. A lot of his work on accurate algorithms which are essentially advanced programs that can draw out information from data. Whether its images or other kinds of astronomical data. We drop trends and be able to recognition of galaxies in an automated way. Very closely related to things like facial recognition and the ability to surveilled things from skates and then aircraft or safes. Those algorithms that we develop in pro fact they dont impact human live that are often portable out into arenas its an iv. There at a big movement at least my field, for astronomers to engage its data ethics and its the ethics of developing these tools. Much more directly especially because there at just not that many jobs in astronomy so a lot of students like graduate students that use to learn these kind of techniques kind of actually end up in an industry where you hope that before they get there, they thought about some of the ethical implications of the things they do. Sarah certainly we are one of the big, complaint because we are learning to, one of the big sort of repetitive comments we got are we just looked at a lot of images and we didnt find anything. We say welcome to our world this at science. This at the way it works. But the idea being that we can train the machine to get rid of bad imagery say that dense urban areas or cloud cover or vegetation, areas where there are large blank fields. Then training the machine its hundreds and hundreds of new archaeological site types. Then the machine can prioritize the imagery so that the crowd at now staying to the machine hey these are actually things we can put them in the machine and get better and better. What happens when the machine gets to be really good at doing this and are proud has trained them. Have we just invented skynet. [laughter] i. E. Keep expecting the terminator to show up and destroy my computer. This at what happens when your imagination runs away its you. I think about these things all of the time and my colleagues talk about them. What at a tradeoff, what are we doing. At this really the right way to be doing science. Allison the thing that i often come back to at that even its the work that i am doing doesnt directly impact people, the fact that working at the albert at a big part that i do at communicating about science. I use some of those algorithms that are just out of the box stuff. Little play toys compared to skynet maybe. The fact that i use those and understand how they work and what they are capable of means than we see the stuff deployed on social media for example. I dont know if people saw there at a huge or will be shortly huge Class Action Lawsuit facebook using facebook recognition in the state of illinois. They just lost a case where they were arguing that individuals would have to press charges for use of facial recognition on their images which at how facebook and other sites like that take you or your friends. So every time you hit yes, thats me, they are helping them get better at that and anytime you for example, one use make my face look older thing. Nope neither did i, good. If you did and you raise your hand thats okay is it too. I tracked it and did a picture of myself and i use an egyptian mummy. [laughter] i am evil and subversive in ways that i move how to be. [laughter] so anytime like these things seem super fun and its oh, i wonder what i would like like an hundred years from now and egyptian mummy. All of those are essentially helping companies developers whoever happens to be, you are giving your image you trained those algorithms to do whatever. You dont move. Thats kind of the problem. Did you actually move. Sarah, make sure that when im teaching my class to do a whole class and ethics. So what happens when say i do move theres a really consensual divorce case and highresolution satellite imagery shows current its the exact same make and model and color one partners parked out in front of the address that happens to be the address of someone its whom you think your partner at having an affair its and then there at proof your at that it coincidence. How can this be used in advice. Forgetting the imagery at Getting Better and better and better. So we are not that far off from space individual recognition and what happens when that happens. I dont know. I dont have the answers because there at an equal like us. Allison at three and movement to write some for both of our practices, historical wrongs. I move your cook talks bit about the history of living. The work that youve done, did you write some of those wrongs in the present day and also participation in essentially living. Historically speaking. Sarah i think i have to acknowledge really complex and uncompfortable things in our field. Archaeology and anthropology has racist and Different Things in the background and histories in this new generation of scientists and scholars are beginning to unravel and talk about how do we create more justice and more equity on the part of date in the field. I am very sensitive to these issues. As a white woman living in the us. I try to make as much space as possible for especially my egyptian colleagues and collaborators something and at very important to us that is we have gone into india, because of course theres a pretty serious history there. We recognize that we are a Company Based in the us and we do archaeology work in the last thing we want to do at go in and tell our colleagues in india what they should be doing. That is not okay on so many levels. Before we even made the decision together, had a number of meetings its colleagues and i said hey, this at what we do and heres the menu. What interest you. What are your needs. What are your priorities. What would you be interested in the possibility of a collaboration. They were very excited. We want capacity building. We need largescale countrywide mapping. We need to do his assessments. We want you to engage its the Younger Generation of archaeologists to provide them. We are collaborating its Indian Developers and we are specifically providing needs forum. Wheres trying, its going to take time but in taking about new ways of thinking and i think these are much better ways of thinking. Hopefully the dialogue will change and at just going to take a lot of time. Allison this at something thats come up in our field as well. The history of astronomy were often talking about we have gone out and explored and discovered and theres a lot of washing over the fact that a lot of those sort of what we would call early missions, out to various parts of the world to do observations for example, venus historically, were really not just about scientific expiration. There about resource acquisition and scientists catching rides on voyages whose missions were ultimately colonialists. We are seeing legacy of that right now. Some of the controversy over construction of a new telescope, tmt. Some of you mightve seen in the news. Historically, this at one piece in a much larger history of hawaiian resistance. At now the state of hawaii but once the kingdom of hawaii. There at what i would say a pretty significant risk in the field between astronomers who kinda want to do business as usual and want to say its okay because weve created an Education Program for you. And its not really in the spirit of what they are talking about witches what does the community actually want and need. Its a nice at we won our mountain back. In his astronomers we kind of need to be okay its that. We have what we wanted for a very long time over other people his wishes. Its a really pretty heated debate going on for us as well. Sarah were seeing these debates and discussions bleed into very mainstream pop culture so how many people saw black panther. A lot of you. There at an iconic scene where the cal monger at in front of the case of objects that were stolen from a product. Like welcome to every museum that is in europe or the us. They are full of stolen objects. Some of them were acquired legally but that doesnt mean they were acquired ethically. There at a big difference. They were given under colonial time. That i think we have to ask a lot of the difficult and uncomfortable questions. We need to be listening a lot more to the Indigenous People. Whose objects were taken. Now they are staying this first to pre entry date and push to get back. Theres been a lot of discussions as well as relationships to the settlers and of course they profited and made a lot of money. They find it so many museums and now a couple of the museums in london have removed their name. We a lot of deconstructive to do in heritage. Who owns the past and who has the right to share and show an honor. Were going to have a lot more talking to do. Before we begin to unravel the mess and a lot more listening. We are at q a. Allison if you would like to ask question, please wait until you get a microphone. Are you planning to use any of the radar satellites that are coming online. Sarah radar stats are really fantastic. Especially in the desert areas. The radar allows us to see through the very dense layers of sand and overburden sold for a lot of the work that i do out in the desert, were looking at mapping river courses and desert landscaping and so the idea of that we can map say the noun river in egypt, and use that to help map. Fake sites from tens of thousands of years ago or more at really important. Yes that is a very valuable data set for the work i do. I would think the government at very interested for maybe defense or other purposes understanding and analyzing the data you are collecting. Do you have a relationship its them on some things you share its them some things you dont feel appropriate to share. Sarah ive worked its the us state department. They have something called the cultural advisory committee. They are a 12 person advisory body and they make recommendations to the state department. Its for cultures that may be undergoing conflict to create new policies to import the restriction of antiquities. I work its them in two thoughts and and 14, obviously its the rising move in egypt. I was able to testify and share the satellite imagery that my team and i had done. We have yet to prove a series of points that is moving in there at damage and there at threat. There are indeed antiquities that people are finding and so that data in addition to data that a number of my colleagues presented, was used i want to in december of 2016. Memorandum assigned to restrict antiquities from being imported to the us and the similar restrictions from alaska and syria. Those cases were simply happy to share that information its the government. I also work on Homeland Security unless anyone says anything, they do very good work in terms of stopping particularly intervening illegally imported into the us that anytime there at something involved, i am contacted and asked to provide commentary in connection its the satellite imagery that i have. And i am very happy to do that. Did you your company or former student have anything to do its the discovery of the white city in honduras. Its interesting that they were displaying out effects who shows up but the corrupt president to get into the photo ops. Sarah i think they are ever referring to the lost city of the monkey god. That is the best selling cook written by a gentleman named douglas preston. That cook was kind of hand by my archaeological colleagues, it was the whole myth of the lost city was very colonialist. Indigenous people never lose their sites. Ever. Anywhere. They move they are, they move the significance in their history and actually many peoples going to get phd his right about their cultures and they are the most knowledgeable people about them in the world. The cook complete its gloss over the not knowledge. The shame of that particular story at this idea that this quest for this medical lost place which never existed. Except in white settlers minds. The idea that there at this amazing diverse landscape full of hundreds and hundreds of sites that are just covered over by modern vegetation that are so known about and valued by better people. That is the story all of the world. I just wish that guy had done a better job of bringing that story to light. Several of my colleagues have done really good science in that region. I think the story of a Central American archaeology, were just staying it again to come to light because of radar. Light detection and ranging. Laser technet analogy that is flown on an airplane or helicopter and what it does at it sends out millions of pulse beams of light and it creates a point cloud model and it allows you to take away the overlaying vegetation and they are lift its a very detailed topographic map. So my colleagues have used two divine tens of thousands of archaeological sites and features. All across america. The idea that the first time we can get a copper has a map of the entirety of my own world at just mind blowing. We are going to get that within the next 15 to 15 years. Im really glad you asked that question because the idea that there are these lost places. Yes in some places there are cities and places in the ring force that we dont move about but i think it also shows that we have a lot more to learn from the Indigenous People because they still value of these places. Theyre very important to them. Allison at working looking at the press of john which at the city an idea that existed for many years that there wasnt city that had a Christian King in the place of people imagined mr. John which was kind of a precursor to ricotta and actually appears in the earlier Marvel Comics before black panther. It was at this idea there was this very advanced technological want lost city. It had been located and people thought it was in india and some people thought it was in ethiopia and eventually some wouldbe explorers showed up and they were very confused to learn that the king was like i am not named present john but its worth looking up some mark. My daughter and i were wondering about opportunities especially in the future for archaeologists and astronomers working together. In particular, and space travel becomes more accessible like when she grows up. Allison at a great question. One of the things that i have said, nessus policies, right now you need idea to be an astronomer. We archaeology get bas, and as much as the people at nasa move about geology and sars and financing the idea of reconstructing a whole civilization from scratch, were really really good at that. What may be difficult to do and obviously we wont move anything when we find civilizations on in the world, there at a whole structure to help you recreate the civilization and pretty good chance that if we do find one in another planet, there wont be human beings there anymore. Anyone from nasa to view it. I would really love to have dialogue its people like you and richard because i think we have to start planning now for inevitable. In time. Weve seen some Pretty Amazing work creating space and beginning to deconstruct these colonialist terminologies and thinking through new ways of describing voyages and journeying on what you talk about that. We need a whole new vocabulary. Thats how we going to do this. Allison i think there are a lot of exciting possibilities especially because in some ways private space industry. Richard branson and jeff basis for that in the world get is it too much credit for making it more accessible parade at still not accessible if you have to sell your house to go. To space. But one of the opportunities that is there, at that there are more people now i think having dialogue from different and sections of study and expertise. For example, people who are interested in taking the tools of archaeology and anthropology to understand not only like, what happens if we find signs of live on another world or civilization or something that builds things in the way that humans do. Not just that but also to even understand how we might go about searching for live. I think that has been very much the purview of people its a very narrow range of expertise mostly. Physics and occasional biology and engineering for a long time. One of the things i have been very excited to see at how much space there at no for conversations its people in the humanities. As well as science at beyond the physical sciences. I think that that is something that will be very important as we go forward. Especially not just making the conversation broader but also understanding the mistakes that we have made in the past and how we can go Forward Together better. I sort of want to add one thing the advice that helped me. Im a huge nerd, i have found the single thing that has helped me to be a better imaginary of what are the different possibilities of people existing in the past at all the Science Fiction that ive read. I just named all women i did that intentionally but i have a whole chapter in my cook where i its all about zion fiction what at archaeology going to be like in a hundred years. The idea that why are we exploring sites on earth and in a hundred of years, at not the reason you think. I am very excited for your daughters generation because i think there are so many walls that are coming down between things are becoming, start reading lots of Science Fiction, it will really help her. Great recommendation. Think you both so much. Two points and came up in the conversation was the power in science and also the impact of looting. Im curious about if you are seeing the opportunity for this science the democratization of information fueling looting. Or conversely helping more vocal folks to do archaeology in their own backyard. Sarah that question gets asked often. Thats a really Important Role in archaeology. All you move at that you are somewhere in part of that. If you say look at google earth and it takes you five years to find the exact place that you are looking on on the globe youll platform, its really hard to find any connection between them. The idea that maybe are we training leaders, i would hope not. The reality at one of my colleagues think it was, almost 40 years ago said if we dont start using satellite imagery, evaporating the pot hunters are going to beat us to it and the reality at they have. There are things around the world that have been heavily loaded. Whether it at in india or china or egypt or avon american southwest. We have a lot of work to do. We need to work faster and harder. And think about the ethics of what we are doing. There are always challenges, data can be lost, you can do screenshots. We do the best we can its keeping things lock down but also in india, we are creating something called a hub systems of the ideas that we empower communities for their sites to go out and do documentation of sites. To pay for an alternation we would all do the same thing. We think through the many shades of gray and how and what are we doing to engage with communities that are looting and why. I think we have to look much more carefully at that. Im afraid that is all the time we have for tonight. We will be signing around the front and if you dont have a book you can purchase on in the back. I would like to thank our friends at the planetarium for co presenting the program here tonight and id like to thank both of you for such a wonderful evening of discussion. Thank you. Ask a [applause] what is your vision in 2020 . We are asking students what dish do you do you most want to see the president ial candidates addressed during the campaign . Cspans nationwide video documentary competition for middle and High School Students with 100,000 in total cash prizes at stake including a 5,000 grand prize. Students are asked to produce a video documentary including cspan video and reflecting different points of view. Information to help you get started is on the website. The freemarket fie