IMAGINE THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF YOU（essay）

It’s AD 2318 and we are long gone, having evaporated instantaneously on Halloween, 2018. However,
our stuff hasn’t disappeared and after 300 years archaeologists from another planet are dispatched to
investigate our planet. They know that we went extinct in 2018 but have no other knowledge of our
society, ways of life, or cultural identity. For some reason, they decide to excavate a “test unit” where you
live here in Vermont (for instance, your room within a shared house or your dorm room). Let’s assume
that the preservation of this space is very good but not complete; what is left has been impacted by
obvious formation processes (critters, bugs, etc.).
Your task in this essay is simple: write an archaeological report of this excavation from their perspective.
In addition to text, feel free to include any appropriate images, plan views, and sketches that would
normally accompany such a report. Please keep in mind that these alien archaeologists are not familiar
with terms like desk, bed, chair, and so on. They/you must describe and interpret the archaeological
context with no prior knowledge of our cultural constructs or lexicon. You may want to look at the book,
Motel of the Mysteries, which is a satirical description of how future archaeologists misinterpret a 20th
–
century motel.
This is a creative essay–you can structure your report in any way that you like but it must be limited to
3000 words or less. Use double-spaced, typed pages and a 10- to 12-point font with one-inch margins.
Upload your paper on Blackboard in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx) or PDF format if you don’t
have Word—no hard copies please.