Tahoe National Forest

Projects & Plans: Heritage Resources Management

Towards an Archaeology of the Future...

How the patient scientist feels when the shapeless tussocks and vague ditches under the thistles and scrub begin to take shape and come clear: this was the outer rampart--this the gateway--that was the granary! We'll dig here, and here, and after that I want to look at that lumpy bit on the slope...How they know true glory when a disk slips through the fingers with the sifted dirt, and cleared with the swipe of a thumb shows, stamped in the fragile bronze, the horned god! How I envy them their shovels and sieves and tape measures, all their tools, and their wise, expert hands that touch and hold what they find! Not for long; they'll give it to the museum, of course; but they did hold it for a moment in their hands.

-Ursula K. LeGuin - Always Coming Home