Congratulations -- you're now eligible to call yourself a space archaeologist. This year's $1 million TED Prize is being used to create an online platform that lets anyone explore ancient sites from satellite images - while identifying archaeological looters in the process.
Sarah Parcak, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor who calls herself a space archaeologist, has won this year's TED Prize to build a global army of amateur archaeologists who help discover and protect the planet's hidden heritage. Parcak, a TED Fellow who was covered two years ago in WIRED, is using the $1m prize to build an online interactive citizen-science platform to create what she calls "a new global alarm system".
In her "TED Prize wish", explaining her mission, Parcak told the TED conferencein Vancouver: "I wish for us to discover the millions of unknown archaeological sites around the world. By creating a 21st-century army of global explorers, we'll find and protect the world's hidden heritage, which contains clues to humankind's collective resilience and creativity."
Parcak uses infrared imagery from satellites to uncover ancient archaeological sites. She now plans to open up the process to anyone with an internet connection. "The plan is for us to develop a massive online crowdsourced citizen science campaign to allow anyone in the world to use satellite imagery to discover archaeological heritage and protect against looting," she said. "If we don't do something in the next couple of years to engage the world, this [heritage] will be gone. We're losing the battle against the looters."
Parcak has been using satellite imagery to map looting in Egypt for five years. "My team has just completed a study of looting in Egypt. We found evidence of looting at 267 sites and mapped 200,000 looting pits. It got worse after 2009 - with the global recession. This is fundamentally an economic problem.” Then there is politically motivated destruction: "Isil has destroyed temples at Palmyra. Who blows up a temple? We know Isil is profiting from the looting of sites, but we don’t know the scale. "The only way we're going to be able to get ahead of the looters is by engaging the world in site discovery - giving the world ownership," she said. "It's hard for the public to go on a dig, so by building a platform with an elegant user experience, the world will be able to search for satellite data and look for sites." The project, which will be based on game dynamics to encourage participation, will not make mapping or GPS data available so as to protect sites. "The last thing we want is for looters to log on and help find sites," she said.
In the game, participants will win points, and start moving up in rank to unlock rich content. "This will be a platform for everyone - not for a particular age group," Parcak said. "Ultimately if we don't get the world excited about finding things and being part of discovery, we're not going to make any headway in the battle we're facing. [Looting] is devastating my community. The prize is honouring the colleagues of mine who have been killed or are on the front line every day to protect sites."
Once citizen scientists make discoveries, the data will be handed to government officials in the countries affected, and to academic archaeologists. "They will then have to take the world with them when they go on digs. They'll use Periscope, Skype, Google Plus, Instagram -- showing the process of archaeological discovery."
Parcak became obsessed with archaeology as a child. "When I was 12 years old, I watched Indiana Jones every Friday night for months on end. We want to get the kids involved. It's not just the grown-up archaeologists that can make these amazing discoveries. There are archaeological geniuses all over the world we don't know about - running a market stall in India, or a housewife in Australia.
"One hundred years ago archaeology was for the rich; 50 years ago it was for men; now it's for academics. It's our aim to democratise it. Who is the next Howard Carter? It might be you."
TED Prize Director Anna Verghese said: "Sarah is the ultimate 21st-century explorer. She’s pioneered a new way of finding ancient sites from space, and with the TED Prize she’s opening up and making accessible the field of archaeology. We can democratise a new kind of exploration.”
Previous winners of the TED Prize include Bono for the ONE Campaign, Jamie Oliver for his Food Revolution, JR for the Inside Out Project, and Sugata Mitra for School in the Cloud.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
