Over 23 years, at least 270 people from 23 countries have visited the ISS. This is an excellent example of creating mini-communities in minimal space. Scientists decided to find out how people adapt to space conditions, especially microgravity. For this purpose, an unusual experiment reminiscent of an archaeological excavation was conducted at the station from January to March 2022.

Of course, it would be possible to use interviews with visitors to the orbital station, but there are many nuances that a person will not talk about or even remember. In order not to miss anything, scientists from the University of Southern California and Chapman University in the USA, together with colleagues from Canada and Australia, used an approach called the “quadruple pit”. It was adopted by archaeologists.

Before starting the excavation, it is necessary to outline the object and determine its preliminary characteristics. To do this, the territory is divided into square meters and shallow pits are laid. Then the artifacts brought to the surface are analyzed.

Scientists were inspired by an example where such an approach is used for modern objects: Garbage Project University of Arizona (1980s) and Undocumented Immigration Project (2009) on the US-Mexico border. According to the authors, “archaeological excavations” on the ISS will help to understand how a person adapts to an unnatural environment for him. In orbit, he is faced not only with isolation and restriction of freedom, but also with microgravity, which allows him to move in any direction and conduct experiments impossible on Earth. Therefore, any routine work requires, first of all, careful preparation.

“In the future, we will be able to develop a method to study other habitats in remote, extreme and dangerous conditions. Excavating there is very expensive and difficult, so we decided to creatively rethink archaeological methods to find answers to important questions,” the scientists explained in an article published in the journal Nature. PLoS One.

The authors mapped six sites on the ISS where they collected evidence of material culture using conventional photographs. Crew members took photos of the work and living areas each day. Scientists noted and described changes in the archaeological complex over time.

So far, data processing has been completed in frames 3 and 5. The first is located near the starboard side, in the workstation area of ​​the “Harmony” module, and the second is located in the aft area, in the “Spokiy” module. The experiment began on January 14, 2022, with astronaut Kayla Barron marking the frames with tape, and concluded on March 21.

Scientists treated the daily images as a series of artifacts. All objects in the field of view were circled and identified, and then a data frame was compiled from the metadata. This made it possible to track changes in how astronauts used the “quadrant” space. All images were checked against schedules and daily reports published on the NASA website. The analysis used the Brainerd-Robinson statistical method, developed for classifying collections based on the similarity of ceramic fragments in archaeology.

A total of 5,438 cases of artifact use were documented. As scientists explain, the area in Square No. 3 was intended for equipment maintenance, but in fact it was empty, used more as a storage area. The location of Square No. 5 had no clear purpose – in fact it was a passage along the wall to the exercise machines or the toilet, but some things were also stored there: toiletries, reusable bags, an unused computer. in use. Sometimes unexpected objects were found there, such as a pack of Russian-made napkins.

According to the authors of the study, this is the first archaeological experiment conducted outside Earth and has shown that the ISS crew sometimes uses the station space differently than planned, giving designers of future missions something to think about.