Convenors: Alice Gorman (Australia), Gai Jorayev (Macau), Bryan Lintott (UK) and Abeer Al Saud (Riyadh)
Around the year 2000, ideas started to coalesce around the concept that places on Earth, in orbit and on planetary bodies constituted a distinct archaeological record relating to the human movement into space. A landmark event was the publication in 2000 of Beth Laura O’Leary’s Lunar Legacy Project, a NASA-funded study which catalogued the artefacts left on the Moon by the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. At WAC-5 in Washington DC in 2003, John Campbell and Beth Laura O’Leary convened the first ever conference session on space archaeology.
Since then, space archaeology has established itself as a recognised sub-discipline with studies of lunar heritage, planetary landing sites, orbital debris, the International Space Station, museum collections and exhibitions, and much more. In 2023 ICOMOS established the International Scientific Committee on Aerospace Heritage, recognising that heritage sites on the Moon are now under threat from numerous proposed lunar missions. Lunar heritage has been identified as a pillar of the US’ Artemis Accords, and is a major topic of discussion in the international space community. Frameworks created now will shape how heritage and archaeology in space intersect with the future, at a time when space billionaires are touting the benefits to humanity of becoming ‘multiplanetary’.
It seems appropriate to celebrate 25 years of space archaeology by inviting reflection on methods and results, gaps and limitations, and the potential of space archaeology. We invite session proposals on topics such as lunar heritage, solar system heritage, planetary geoarchaeology, colonialism and Indigenous intersections, technology and nationalism, defence and nuclear heritage, cultural landscapes, naturecultures, space habitats, spacecraft graveyards, legal aspects, standards, critical heritage, art, and future-making. Sessions can be the traditional 2-6 papers, roundtables, panels, or other creative formats.
Contacts:
Alice Gorman
Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
zoharesque@bigpond.com
Gai Jorayev
Macau University of Tourism, Macau
g.jorayev@outlook.com
Bryan Lintott
Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK
Bryan@BJLintott.com
Abeer Al Saud
UNESCO (Riyadh)
asmsalsaud@gmail.com
THEME SESSIONS
T19/Session 01: A Journey Beyond Earth: The Foundations of Contemporary Space Archaeology