Welcome
I am Sarah Parcak, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, archaeologist, Egyptologist, and author.I have worked on excavations in 14 countries across the globe since 1999.
I am author of Satellite Remote Sensing For Archaeology (Routledge 2009) and Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past (Henry Holt 2019), which won the Phi Beta Kappa 2020 Book Award for Science, as well as many peer-reviewed academic papers. I am a National Geographic Society Explorer, a Young Global Leader, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a TED Senior Fellow, winner of the 2016 TED Prize, 2016 recipient of the Smithsonian Institute American Ingenuity Award, a 2018 recipient of the Explorer’s Club Lowell Thomas Award, and a 2020 recipient of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society Distinguished Explorer’s Award.
I am Founder and President of Globalxplorer, a non-profit dedicated to using cutting edge technologies to protect and preserve cultural heritage. I co-direct the Joint Lisht Mission with Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities, which focuses on the excavation and survey of Egypt's Middle Kingdom capital. My work has been featured in multiple BBC-Discovery Channel and PBS-Nova documentaries.
Archaeology might just save us all
The world is in crisis. Climate change. The rise of authoritarianism. Wars. Disease. At times, everything feels hopeless, and that you, a person trying their best, can make no difference. And, even if you could, what difference would it really make? Can things ever get better, and will we survive the pending “collapse” of society?
Archaeology teaches us that we have been here before, many times, facing nearly identical problems. The pot sherds and fragments people like me excavate from countless ancient sites across the globe show our resilience, our creativity, and our adaptability in the face of enormous challenges. “Collapse” is not what it seems. People and their cultures can survive, and do, often in the most unlikely of ways.
The purpose of this substack is to explore the stories of how the past impacts today and vice versa. The past can be a palette of convenience for harmful modern mythologies for those who seek to exploit power, as well as a huge lesson for those who might wish to reframe current moments with deep perspective. How little-alongside how much- we have changed in 300,000 years might amuse you, terrify you, and, hopefully, educate you in what it means to be human in a non-static world.
We’ll also be exploring how all the amazing new technologies like satellite imagery analysis, Machine learning/AI, and DNA analysis are impacting our ability to understand what happened in the past.
There will be occasional interviews, and sometimes, roundups of cool archaeology news.
Let’s push the boundary together
I am starting to write my 3rd book, an ambitious new project that I hope will help to change the conversations we are having about the past, and what is possible for us today.
In a nutshell, the book is about how, in spite of everything happening in the world today, I remain hopeful about what is possible for humanity. I think it will will be edgy, and will make some of my archaeology colleagues uncomfortable, however, that’s a good thing! We need our field to be more diverse and more open.
I hope to bring you, my readers, into the conversation and become my thought partners. I’ll be testing ideas and examples I want to explore in the book, and your feedback will be crucial during my book writing.
Why subscribe to Future of Our Past?
The kind of community I hope to create and foster here is one dedicated to applying past lessons today, and being open to sharing the richness and diversity of the human experience.
Free subscribers can expect a weekly piece on current events in a larger archaeological framework, *or* an essay on new archaeological discoveries and their significance, OR my musings on archaeology generally and my adventures.
Paid perks
I hope you will support the work I do here regardless because it is work, and writing is hard work. Yes, I get a salary from my university, and I am very fortunate to be in my current position. However, there are ideas I would like to explore beyond academic bounds and this is the space for creativity and investigation with a group of committed readers who share my interests. So you should subscribe if you love the idea of supporting an archaeologist sharing cool stories about the past and examining with you their significance in the present. I am also quite vocal (as some of you know) about writers being fairly compensated for their time and advise younger writers to do so starting out in their careers. This Substack is extra work, full stop, and I want to set the right example for everyone.
My paid subscribers have access to the full archive, and will be receiving weekly AMAs, discussion threads, bonus posts, behind-the-scenes texts and photos, etc…
I donate a lot of my outside income to support my ongoing archaeological work in Egypt and elsewhere, so, be confident that any financial support you provide here will ultimately support cool archaeology.
Alright, let’s go digging…
Dr. P
