Space Archaeology ?

The BBC have been running stories under the banner heading of 'space archaeology' which isn't strictly accurate since it involves the study of the earth from space i.e. satellite imagery and not the other way around. Don't get me wrong, this is brilliant, it's like aerial photography with a bigger lens I guess, but it's not exactly new... we've been doing that for years! In some circles they call it 'remote sensing' but I guess that is even less sexy as a concept or a banner heading! I secretly suspect somebody has been reading Von Dannekin (is that how you spell the guy's name?) or 'were our ancestors influenced by alien visitors' for the uninitiated. The idea that brilliant innovative human beings were unable to come up with inventions and new technologies all by themselves is quite frankly insulting to every one of us. The human race is brilliant, can wrest success from the jaws of defeat by ingenuity and pragmatism and can make something out of nothing by sheer tenacity and perseverance. It's one of the reasons why I became an archaeologist, because I can really appreciate how brilliant that is as a concept! If we can't do things by our own hands then we invent something which can help us to do it better: from the humblest bone needle to make clothes; knives and weapons to feed ourselves; shelters to live in; receptacles to cook and store things in; right through to items purely for adornment or pleasure and even to space travel....I'm not saying we're alone in the enormity of space...logic suggests this is unlikely, but it didn't take astronauts from other planets to get us going. Who knows, maybe it IS actually us that are the most intelligent life forms out there and the rest will look to us for guidance. If so, they will have a while to wait and I dread the responsibility this places on us but I suspect if it's possible we'll get there, eventually!