Discovering What Lies Beneath Seattle

As a city known for its innovation and forward thinking, Seattle does not typically look backwards to its past. Columnist Knute Berger thinks that it should, and that urban archaeology can play an important role in engaging the community and informing land use decisions. He argues that historic preservation should also encompass what is beneath the city surface:

"If you take the Underground Tour in Pioneer Square, you can see how false this division is. What was above is now below; while archaeology isn't always about buried architecture, architecture is inevitably the archaeology of the future, leaving its footprints, ruins, and foundations for our descendants to puzzle over. The two are linked by time, intention, and our ways of studying the past."