Some believe...
... that if aliens were monitoring Earth from a close but safe distance
and wanted to learn a lot about us anonymously, they would hook into
the Internet:
http://www.ieti.org/index.html
Explains so much about who posts and why, huh?
And as an old archaeology professor once taught us, they learn a lot
more about what a culture is really like by sifting through the refuse
heaps than any official documents and monuments.