PALEO FUTURE ARCHIVE

Samples from Allan Hills, in East Antarctica, have yielded ice dated to 2.7–6 million years old, capturing atmospheric conditions from the Pliocene and early Pleistocene epochs through water, including higher CO₂ levels and warmer climates.

PALEO FUTURE ARCHIVE contained reimagined fragments of Antarctica’s ice core, compressing the 300,000-year arc of Homo sapiens. 

Seven archetypal temporal images of frozen water, intentionally buried for discovery in 2.7–6 million years —effectively reversing the passive water archive of Antarctica cores into an active, almost testamentary act. The work becomes a deliberate fossil of consciousness, a message in a bottle for entities that may not even be biological.

Seven temporal images

Left from bottom to top

1) The birth of intentional design and symbolic thought. (300,000–50,000 years ago) A finely crafted hand-axe (Acheulean biface) made of flint stone, arrowheads still bearing microscopic traces of animal blood proteins from the last hunt it performed. 

2) The emergence of abstract thinking, art, and decoration of the body—the first "image.” 200,000–10,000 years ago, represented by two ochre crayons (as found in Blombos Cave) with deliberate cross-hatch markings still visible. 

3) The beginning of anthropocentrism and ecological domination. 12,000–5,000 years ago, archived as carbonized wheat seed. Birth of agriculture, permanence, and ownership of land. 

4) Writing, trade, hierarchy, the birth of bureaucracy, and inequality. 5,000–500 years ago, a cuneiform clay tablet fragment with the first known written complaint about poor copper quality and two gold dinar coins. 

Right from bottom to top

5) The moment humanity gained the power of self-extinction and inscribed it into geology itself- 1945–2000 plutonium-239 glass (trinitite-like) from a nuclear test site, encased in a lead-sealed quartz ampoule

6) The explosive peak of information and the simultaneous peak of irreversible pollution 2000–2025 archived as a micro-SD card (in waterproof casing) containing the entire Wikipedia dump from November 2025 + a single-use plastic microbead. 

7) Top layer – the "message" (intended for the far future) A laser-etched sapphire disc (optical data storage, rated for >10^9 years) bearing the below message in 100 languages + Unicode + pictorial instructions: