This is a question I’ve wondered about that I think is copacetic the rules?
When someone makes a tongue-in-cheek joke about whatever strange and trendy object or meme it implies it will be entirely foreign and illegible to someone who discovers it in the future, that implies a gap where knowledge has just gone. Barring some cataclysmic event, is that something possible? Are current overall databases of historical knowledge (physical or digital) built to be stable or redundant enough to exist indefinitely? If there is knowledge of any sort that’s in danger, how are people attempting to deal with that danger?
I mean, it would depend on A. How widespread the artifact in question was, B. Whether or not it was mentioned in a written source which survived and was interpretable into that moment in the future, C. Whether or not those archaeologists find a lot of them, and D. How experienced and widely trained the archaeologist/ team of archaeologists was.
There’s a lot of archaeological artifacts that we find from ancient times (c. 2kya) and have no earthly idea what they are, but all the above factors play a role. For example, on one of the digs I participated in, we found a large limestone cone. Everyone on the team assumed, based on its size and decoration, that it was an architectural piece, but even the architect couldn’t figure out what on earth it could be; it didn’t look like any of the Hellenistic/Roman architecture of the area, yet it came from those deposits undisturbed. We assumed it was an import, but that would be incredibly strange for the region. In short, we simply didn’t know, and we had all sorts of theories which were untestable.
I would think that in a thousand years, archaeologists investigating our time period would be able to piece together most things, just because we write such a copious amount, way more than most other cultures did in the past. If they had a way to access online databases we have now, or even glimpse at them through paper files or translations into other media of those files, they’d be set. So, say they found a meme, like a deep DEEP 2019 in depth meme. They could probably piece together using whatever written sources survived that what they were looking at was an example of a meme, and that it was meant to be humorous. They might not get why it was humorous to us, but they’d understand that we thought it was. And that’s just assuming archaeology in 3020 AD is exactly the same as archaeology is now, which it certainly won’t be.
In short, yeah, we’ll probably lose some knowledge, but given the fact that we write so much, and that we actively try and build our knowledge to last and be transmitted onwards, it is unlikely that all knowledge of an aspect of our culture would be 100 percent wiped out in just 1000 years. A skilled enough archaeologist could piece together what was going on, at least at a basic level.
I’m a little late to the party I’d like to add on to what the other commenter said.
Just to quickly add to the first half of the comment: There are so many efforts to collect different forms of data in libraries, doomsday vaults, time capsules, etc. for example the US Library of Congress has all sorts of requirements that ensures both digital and analog records are kept for any data in the library.
I get into discussions about this with colleagues all the time because I don’t think archaeology beyond the 1970s is really necessary, with the exception of areas of conflict/war. That one caveat is because propaganda/corrupt governments and groups often distort records and it’s often hard to keep accurate records of many things during war time.
The other thing which I really wanted to touch on is the idea that archaeology will be the same 1000 years from now. Our discipline is changing, albeit very slowly see Clarke’s 1973 opinion on the change in archaeology from the ‘30s and you’d think he wrote the paper yesterday. Anyway, I think the largest hurdle for archaeology is invasive excavation and I think eventually we will develop non-invasive techniques that allow us to digitally or virtually excavate a site without ever physically digging the site. We already have different types of non-invasive survey techniques like magnetometer and ground penetrating radar which allow us to, roughly, see what’s below us before excavating.
So chances are that, with the constant increase in data collection and preservation along with technological advances in archaeology, our discipline will probably die out in the next 200 years or so. I’m sure other archaeologists will disagree with me since there is so much material out there but that material is finite. At some point we’ll discover all classical artifacts or all ancient artifacts and there will never be any reproduced. Then the only stuff that will exist is material that can be more easily identified because of the massive data archive that humanity is developing.