Imagery from orbit, including light the eye cannot see, picks up faint marks in the ground that hide old buildings and streets. Once the image is processed, streaks that looked meaningless can resolve into a whole buried city. The method finds and maps sites that people on the ground would walk right past.
Finding a site from space marks a place worth looking, not an answer. The questions about who lived there and how still have to be settled by digging, because bones, broken pots and foundations are what rebuild the story of a society. Satellites point the way, and fieldwork does the explaining.
Roughly 108 billion people may have lived in the last 50,000 years, so most of what they left behind has never been found. A cautious estimate puts the number of unknown sites at more than 50 million, from big settlements to small campsites, on land and under water. Known archaeology is only a small corner of the record.
Comparing satellite images taken over time shows when and where ancient sites are being dug up and robbed. These images show looting getting much worse after the 2009 global recession and rising again after the 2011 uprisings across the Arab world. Watching from above turns the theft of heritage from rumor into something that can be measured, which makes protecting sites urgent.
Searching satellite images does not need a specialist, so members of the public can help map millions of undiscovered sites online. Opening the search this way covers far more ground and spreads the joy of discovery beyond professionals, who still value expert knowledge. The author argues this lets everyone help find and protect the world's hidden heritage.