1 Satellite image and India's past M.B.Rajani 1 and K.Kasturirangan 2 1 NIIT University (NU), Neemrana, Alwar District, Rajasthan - 301705, India. Email: rajaniphd@gmail.com 2 National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), IISc Campus, Bangalore 560012, India Abstract: Since 2005 research in the field of remote sensing and GIS applications for archeology has been conducted at the National Institute of Advanced studies (NIAS), Bangalore. Specific investigations on several case studies have been undertaken. This article will elaborate on the nature of this technology and its use to archaeology, the status of research in this field internationally and the role of our country in it, infrastructure and expertise requirements, and then it will briefly describe specific case studies and results of the investigation. An Overview Of Contemporary Advances In The Use Of Space Techniques For Archaeological Exploration: In the human history, one of the earliest breathtaking views of our earth from space must be the rising Earth seen by Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968 as they came from behind the Moon. This is a landmark event in earth observation from space. Though one already knew that earth would look blue from outside, the image that Apollo 8 astronauts saw and photographed graphically shows earth as a lonely object looking like a tiny blue marble against the dark background of space. Until then, how earth would look from outside was a concept or an idea and left to people’s imagination. But an image allows one to visually perceive what was till then a concept. This perception brings life into the concept and allows one to quickly understand the subject or its condition better. It is a spectacular experience to see a whole body of information projected in the form of one visual. Such a picture clarifies many conceptions about the area that may have been disconnected and distorted in one’s mind. Several later observations by astronauts on space flights, or scientists analysing earth’s images taken from space have reporte d with excitement seeing the Great Wall stretching across the mountains of China and the Great Pyramid adorning the Giza plateau west of river Nile. In case of archaeological sites, apart from seeing features that depict some object or phenomena, it also displays another dimension: time. Time in human history, showing something that was! Launch of Sputnik on October 4 th 1957 heralded a new era for the mankind by throwing open the access to the vantage point of space. Over the last more than 50 years space has opened up new vistas in communication, broad casting, remote sensing for earth resources survey, navigation and position fixing, meteorology, as well as space exploration for scientific investigation (Kasturirangan et al. 1998). One of the key