Archaeology of the Internet

The Wayback Machine allows you to access dead websites after they have gone (though of course they won't be updated any more).

Some time back, I posted a humorous item about the internet archaeologists of the near future discovering the ruins of the Friendster civilisation, complete with abandoned profiles. The same could have been said of Geocities.

So, could you have an archaeology of the internet? How would you go about it? I guess you could chart the rise and fall of various websites, and how they over-reached themselves in the quest for users (Geocities), or added too many new features (Facebook). This process might be analogous to the rise and fall of empires (Roman, Byzantine, Sasanian...)

Future archaeology

Internet Archaeologists Discover Ancient "Friendster" Civilisation - The Onion (video)

Internet archaeologists stumbled upon the perfectly preserved ruins of an ancient civilisation called "Friendster".

As the person who posted this to the BritArch mailing list pointed out, you can see this happening in the not-too-distant future.

One day, there will also be lunar archaeology, as the perfectly-preserved remains of previous lunar expeditions can be examined by future visitors.

This also reminded me of the classic article about ley-line congestion from 2002.