This post is part of the series Excavating Archaeology, which features selections from, and research on, the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology & History of the Early Americas and related collections, housed in the Geography and Map Division and in the Rare Book & Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. –Derek Walcott, The Antilles : fragments of epic memory : the Nobel Lecture.
Archaeology is the story of fragments—what survives and what does not. It is the task of re-building worlds, cultures, and works of art, from the bits that happen to have made it through wars, natural disasters, and the immense destructive power and deep forgetfulness of time. Because things break, shatter, decay, and get separated, history can be a kind of jigsaw puzzle–especially for archaeologists.