As glaciers retreat permafrost dissolves and olden communities stoop lethal methane gases rise from the ebbing of a soggy pulp: dead limbs hang from healthy trees and grass is the color of ash. Clambering away from the gravity of time, leaves stutter if there’s even the whisper of a breeze. The path suddenly turns toward the canyon where the gods who mediated between humans and earth warily emerge from its shadows. In Late Style, imagination was needed to transform the stones into something special, and to interpret their significance. They provoked the question: will the unfamiliar become familiar again?

 

 

imagination: J. Wallace, Digging the Dirt: The Archaeological Imagination. London, 2004.