A wonderful article in the Cosmos Magazine (not Cosmo) about archaeologists using Google Earth to help find lost cities around the globe shows just how in-depth satellite mapping has become:

Within a few hours on Google Earth, Madry was able to locate 101 features in an area covering 1,440 square kilometres in Central France. These features represented Iron Age, Medieval and Gallo-Roman sites.

“I have found a very large number of sites using Google Earth from my office here in the U.S.. I was quite surprised at this, and have now given many different short courses in the U.S. and Europe for archaeologists on how to use Google Earth in their work,” Madry said.

“Now, with the commercial ultra-high resolution satellite imagery and especially with Google Earth, archaeologists can conduct regional site surveys from their own offices,” Madry said. “This is something we would have only dreamed of before.”

Although I think Cosmos is a little off on calling for the end of Indiana Jones’s style archeology; I think that going off randomly searching for lost cities is probably over now. Yet, those using Google Earth can now help their archeology and treasure seeking by finding areas that are still uncovered and following up by actually traveling there via GPS.

This all goes to show how using technology, knowledge, and curiosity can truly be a positive benefit when used properly. Not only that, but even with cities entirely gone, archeology can be used to find civilizations thousands of years erased, pushing forward how long our own civilizations would be findable if we all suddenly disappeared.