Talk:Sarah Parcak

Hawass
If we are going to use him, we should not be using blogs as a source but should use his site - carefully. We need to include his "I was very pleased to be involved with this project" perhaps, and make sure we are not using his statement to make it look as though, for instance, Parcak disagrees with him about the difficulties in interpretation. Dougweller (talk) 20:46, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have removed an unsourced (and any sources given need to mention Parcak) contentious post attacking the subject of this article. I hope this won't happen again. Dougweller (talk) 08:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Menze and Ur paper
The text below has been removed. The report on the abc website is wrong. Jason Ur and others have been using high resolution satellite imagery (historic and modern) in Syria for a number of years prior to Parcak's work. It is quite simply wrong to state that any of Jason's work is built on what Parcak has done.

In March 2012 a paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which built upon the work of Parcak and the late Andrew Sherratt, locating around 9000 potential archaeological sites in Syria through the use of multispectral satellite images. <\snip>

Not a "Space Archaeologist"
I would like to start the discussion about removing the description "space archaeologist" from Parcak's Wikipedia page, or heavily qualifying it by pointing out that this term is not accepted by her archaeological and Egyptological peers and is instead a popular cultural term that she incorrectly applies to herself.

Dr. Parcak is an Egyptologist and/or archaeologist who, like many others in those fields, relies on a technique called remote sensing to gather data about potential archaeological sites. The data Dr. Parcak relies upon often comes from satellites. Conversely, following the typical descriptive convention in archaeology, a "space archaeologist" would be someone who investigates material cultural remains found outside of Earth - much like how American Southwest archaeologists study cultural remains found in the American Southwest. Because Dr. Parcak does not investigate material culture found outside of Earth (or sites of exit for material culture outside of Earth - AKA launch sites), the label is inappropriate and should not be given credence on Wikipedia. Pinchme123 (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You're literally correct. In practice multiple sources call her that, and as you point out she calls herself that. As does National Geography in various articles, the University of Birmingham, Phys.Org, and John Hopkins University. Anthropology News says she is often referred to as a space archaeologist without challenging the term,
 * What sources show that her peers don't accept the term? There might be some way we can use them. Doug Weller  talk 18:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This is the primary reason I did not directly change her page to challenge the implicit assumption that she is a "space archaeologist." Evidence of this challenge exists in the cases of non-use of the descriptor, rather than a direct quote to the effect of 'Sarah Parcak is not a space archaeologist.' Evidence of such silences can be found in readily-available news pieces regarding some of the studies she has been involved with, such as this one from CBC News, or this one at RedOrbit.com. I'd also point out that Dr. Parcak does not use the descriptor to refer to her technique academically, when it is sent through peer review for publication. Searches through JSTOR for her name as an author and the phrase "space archaeology" or "space archaeologist" do not return any results, despite multiple returns for her name and "archaeology." In the latter examples, she refers to her technique, appropriately, as "remote sensing," and never once mentions "space." One example is "Archaeological Looting in Egypt: A Geospatial View."
 * Furthermore, a search of JSTOR finds that all uses of "space archaeology" in publications available there track to a UNESCO Expert Meeting Series, once titled "UNESCO Expert Meeting on Space Archaeology" for two sessions, before leading to a group, more appropriately appropriately renamed "UNESCO Expert Group on Archaeology and Remote Sensing."
 * I believe another strong line of reasoning to qualify the description in its use here is that there already is a field of inquiry referred to as space archaeology, which is most certainly not the field in which she is engaged. In other words, a "space archaeologist" is someone who conducts space archaeology. Maybe the appropriate change is to acknowledge this and point out the uncritical application of the description to Dr. Parcak, despite not doing research in the field of space archaeology? Note in this piece from space.com the label "space archaeologists" applies to those archaeologists who concern themselves with non-Earth sites and space programs. "Space Archaeology" appears in JSTOR, without Dr. Parcak's name attached, in pieces referencing archaeological inquiry outside of Earth or related to space programs, such as the article "Space Archaeology" in Archaeology. The only academic use of "space archaeologist" found in JSTOR is in regard to a former underwater archaeologist, who gave a paper on the Apollo 11 landing site at a conference. Pinchme123 (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Use of the TexX money to fund GlobalXPlorer
Seewhich is its website. this link discusses its launch. "a citizen science and archaeology platform that’s enlisting people around the world to discover sites unknown to modern archaeologists." "built in collaboration with the TED Prize, National Geographic, satellite imagery and analytics firm DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI), and platform developer Mondo Robot. While GlobalXplorer has ambitions to span the globe, it is launching in Peru, where Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) will serve as the on-the-ground partner." Sorry, I don't have time right now to add this. Doug Weller talk 10:48, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting tweet
[[User:Doug Weller| Doug Weller] talk 18:46, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Call to violence against monuments
Should I add a reference or we're trying to hide relevant info in this page?--SamZane (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I looked to my discussion, I will provide a citation. --SamZane (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * OK, now the issue has been reported by reliable secondary sources. Not being American, I'm not 100% sure I understood the controversy, but apparently Parcak suggested (in a more or less playful, and regardless inappropriate way) to the currently protesting population, a way to bring down a confederate memorial obelisk in Birmingham, Alabama. Is that right? Khruner (talk) 14:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)