Archaelogical Futurism

If a meteor killed all humans and destroyed most of civilization, what would a curious alien find? Most likely they would discover a cell phone screen here, a half-sneaker there, and some bits of a gun over there — all traces of modern civilization. The odds that aliens would ever find evidence of transitional human societies — spearheads from the Assyrians, horse-and-carriages from the British, or stone buildings from Babylon — are one-in-a-billion. An alien is a billion times more likely to find a bubble gum wrapper than a piece of papyrus.