Xenoarchaeology, a branch of xenology dealing with extraterrestrial cultures, is a hypothetical form of archaeology that exists mainly in works of science fiction.
Xenoarchaeology is sometimes called astroarchaeology or exoarchaeology, although some would argue that the prefix exo- would be more correctly applied to the study of human activities in a space environment.
[3] It is arguably the case that, due to the immense distances between stars, any evidence we discover of extraterrestrial intelligence, whether it be an artifact or an electromagnetic signal, may come from a long-vanished civilization.
[15] Percival Lowell's mistaken identification of Martian canals[16] was an early attempt to detect and study an alien culture from its supposed physical remains.
Robert Freitas,[20][21][22] Christopher Rose and Gregory Wright have argued that interstellar probes can be a more energy-efficient means of communication than electromagnetic broadcasts.
[25] On the basis that the Earth-Moon or Sun-Earth libration orbits might constitute convenient parking places for automated extraterrestrial probes, unsuccessful searches were conducted by Freitas and Valdes.
[28] In a 2005 paper, Luc Arnold proposed a means of detecting smaller, though still mega-scale, artifacts from their distinctive transit light curve signature.
Some of the more prominent examples of xenoarchaeological fiction include Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama, H. Beam Piper's short story Omnilingual, and Charles Sheffield's Heritage Universe series.