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" The looters are using Google Earth, too. They're coming in with metal detectors and geophysical equipment. Some ask me to confirm sites. "
Sarah Parcak
Google
Earth
Coming
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" When I was a child growing up in Maine, one of my favorite things to do was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine, because my parents told me it would bring me luck. But you know, these shells, they're hard to find. They're covered in sand. They're difficult to see. "
Sarah Parcak
Parents
Me
Growing Up
" There's even an aircraft sensor system that sends down hundreds of thousands of pulses of light measured at different return rates. It allows you to literally strip away vegetation and see entire cities beneath the rain forest canopy. This is the unbelievable future of archaeology. "
Sarah Parcak
You
Light
Future
" Satellite datasets like WorldView can see objects as small as 1.5 feet in diameter. In 2014, WorldView-3 will be able to see objects a small as a foot. "
Sarah Parcak
Feet
Small
See
" Less than 1 percent of ancient Egypt has been discovered and excavated. With population pressures, urbanization, and modernization encroaching, we're in a race against time. Why not use the most advanced tools we have to map, quantify, and protect our past? "
Sarah Parcak
Map
Egypt
Race
" Satellites record data in different parts of the light spectrum that we can't see. And it's that information that allows satellites to be so powerful in terms of looking at things like vegetation health, finding different kinds of geology that may indicate an oil deposit or some kind of mineralogical deposit that can be mined. "
Sarah Parcak
Looking
Powerful
Data
" Once archaeologists have shown possible 'new' ancient features, they can import the data into their iPads and take it to the field to do survey or excavation work. Technology doesn't mean we aren't digging in the dirt anymore - it's just that we know better where to dig. "
Sarah Parcak
Technology
Work
Know
" We're literally just beginning to learn how to use satellites to find sites. More and more people are realizing there's this incredible tool. "
Sarah Parcak
People
Beginning
Learn
" My dream is to map every archaeological site in the world because, if we can do that, then we have this massive global data base that all sorts of global heritage organizations and heritage organizations within countries can use, and they can use that information to protect what's there. "
Sarah Parcak
World
Map
Information
" When people initially think of the term 'space archaeologist,' they think, 'Oh, it's someone who uses satellites to look for alien settlements on Mars or in outer space,' but the opposite is true - we're actually looking for evidence of past human life on planet earth. "
Sarah Parcak
Life
Think
Space
" You think looting is bad in Egypt, look at Peru, India, China. I've been told in China there are over a quarter-million archaeological sites, and most have been looted. This is a global problem of massive proportions, and we don't know the scale. "
Sarah Parcak
Think
Know
Problem
" Archaeologists gave the military the idea to use aerial photographs for spying and field survey. We are fortunate that the spatial and spectral resolutions of the imagery available to us are so broadly useful for archaeology. "
Sarah Parcak
Military
Archaeology
Us
" Choosing an unconventional career path - I am not a traditional Egyptologist by any means. I found what I love, and I have stuck with it. "
Sarah Parcak
Path
Career
Career Path
" Looting speaks to a lack of economic opportunities - frankly, we all would loot, too, if our families' continued survival depended on it. "
Sarah Parcak
Survival
Economic
Lack
" I think archaeologists are stuck, and we are losing our past at a very rapid rate. Tens of thousands of sites will be lost, and we've only unveiled a tiny percent of the past. "
Sarah Parcak
Think
Will
Losing
" Discoveries aren't made by one person exploring by themselves. And discoveries aren't made overnight. People don't see the thousands of hours that go into it. "
Sarah Parcak
Exploring
Go
Person
" Eventually, when I started studying Egyptology, I realized that seeing with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough. Because all of the sudden, in Egypt, my beach had grown from a tiny beach in Maine to one eight hundred miles long, next to the Nile. "
Sarah Parcak
Enough
Long
Eyes
" There's always a little jump to your heart when you realize you've got looting. "
Sarah Parcak
Heart
Always
You
" Seeing sites and features in places where we never looked or never thought things might exist is causing archaeologists across the world to think deeper about their sites or entire cultures. "
Sarah Parcak
Seeing
World
Thought
" I hope my work contributes to understanding long-term patterns of human behavior and how we survive, thrive, or fail during times of environmental, social, and economic crisis. "
Sarah Parcak
Environmental
Hope
Work
" We have so many issues with overpopulation and urbanization and site looting. And this isn't just Egypt. This is everywhere in the world, even in America. So we only have a limited amount of time left before many archaeological sites all over the world are destroyed. "
Sarah Parcak
Time
Egypt
America
" In archaeology, context is everything. Objects allow us to reconstruct the past. Taking artifacts from a temple or an ancient private house is like emptying out a time capsule. "
Sarah Parcak
Temple
Time
House
" You can theorize as much as you want about what you think you're seeing, but until you get out there and dig, you can't tell exactly what it is. "
Sarah Parcak
Seeing
Tell
Think
" The most exciting moment as an archaeologist happened when I was looking at the great archaeology site of Tannis, which of course we all know from 'Indiana Jones.' We got satellite imagery of the city of Tannis, we processed it, and literally from thousands of miles away from my lab in Alabama, we were able to map the entire city. "
Sarah Parcak
City
Map
Great
" To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist. "
Sarah Parcak
Pyramid
Dream
Every
" We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for? "
Sarah Parcak
History
Living
Face
" When a wall is slowly covered over by earth, the materials it's made from decay and become part of the soils around and above it, sometimes causing vegetation above and next to the wall to grow faster or slower. Satellite imagery helps archaeologists to pick up these subtle changes. "
Sarah Parcak
Sometimes
Grow
Become
" I played varsity soccer at Yale and continued playing at Cambridge. "
Sarah Parcak
Yale
Cambridge
Soccer
" There are so many previously unknown sites and structures all over the world. And I think most importantly what satellites help to show us is we've actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world. "
Sarah Parcak
Show
Help
World
" How do you find a buried city in a vast landscape? Finding it randomly would be the equivalent of locating a needle in a haystack, blindfolded, wearing baseball mitts. "
Sarah Parcak
You
Finding
Baseball
" Think about what would happen if Indiana Jones and Google Earth had a love child. I use high-resolution and NASA satellites and look for subtle differences on the surface of the earth that locate buried ancient pyramids and towns and ancient tombs, which we then go and excavate. "
Sarah Parcak
Think
Child
Differences