Dec. 16 () –
The physical artifacts of human exploration of Mars deserve to be cataloged, preserved, and cared for in order to record the Humanity’s first attempts at interplanetary exploration.
This is according to the anthropologist at the University of Kansas (KU) Justin Holcomb, lead author of an article with that demand published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
“Our main argument is that Homo sapiens is currently undergoing a dispersal that began in Africa, reached other continents and now it has started in environments outside of this planet,” explains Holcomb, its lead author. in a statement. “We have begun to populate the solar system. And just as we use artifacts and features to track our movement, evolution and history on Earth, we can do the same in outer space by following probes, satellites, landers and various materials we leave back. “There is a material trace in this dispersion.”
In the same way that archaeologists use “middens” (or ancient garbage dumps) to reveal secrets of past societies here on Earth, Holcomb argues that much of the Material considered “space junk” actually has great archaeological and environmental value.
“These are the first material records of our presence, and that is important to us,” he clarifies. “I’ve seen many scientists refer to this material as space junk, galactic junk. Our argument is that it is not garbage; It is actually very important. It is essential to change that narrative towards heritage because the solution to litter is disposal, but the solution to heritage is preservation. “There is a big difference.”
The KU researcher maintains that future missions to Mars and other planets must consider potential archaeological damage at landing sites and other sites where human exploration is planned. ““Missions to other planets must take this into account in their planning,” Holcomb insists. “They will not land in areas that might disturb these sites. They will think of them differently than they would garbage lying around. We need to track the movements of our species through space and time, and we do this through stratigraphy “.
Holcomb’s argument for preserving traces of human exploration on other planets builds on earlier work, in which he argued for the declaration of a “lunar anthropocene,” or era of human dominance over the lunar landscape. “On the Moon, we argue that we could create an Anthropocene, a human era,” he argues. “On Mars, we don’t believe there is an Anthropocene, but there is an archaeological record that needs to be a stratigraphic horizonwhich allows us to place this material in a frame. And, of course, we could do this throughout the solar system.”
While anthropologists have some understanding of how climate and geology contribute to the degradation of artifacts on Earth, the otherworldly environments of planets like Mars will surely affect how quickly and severely artifacts suffer damage from cosmic energies, the winds, water and soil. These Martian processes are currently poorly understood..
“That field is called geoarchaeology, specifically, the field that studies the geological effects on archaeological materials,” Holcomb says. “Planetary geoarchaeology is a future field for sure, and we need to consider materials not only on Mars in general, but also at various locations on Mars, that have different processes.”
In this way, Holcomb advocates establishing a methodology to track and catalog human material on Mars and subsequent planets that humans may visit, perhaps through an already existing database such as the Registry of Objects Launched into Outer Space. the United Nations.
“If this material is heritage, we can create databases that track where it has been preserved, down to a broken explorer wheel or a helicopter blade, which represents the first helicopter on another planet”, Holcomb proposes. “These artifacts are very similar to hand axes in East Africa or Clovis points in the Americas. They represent the earliest presence and, from an archaeological perspective, are key points in our historical chronology of migration.”
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